


Theoretical Consequences

by consulting_vulcan_jedi_detective



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Prison, convict!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-11 19:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consulting_vulcan_jedi_detective/pseuds/consulting_vulcan_jedi_detective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doctor John Watson is definitely not the type to run from danger. In fact, he seeks it out: danger makes him feel alive. So when he is invalided home from duty in Afghanistan, he seeks out a job that can recreate a part of the thrill he’s begun to miss. His first successful employment attempt? The position of prison doctor, where he meets one unusual – and very dangerous – Sherlock Holmes.</p><p>Abandoned indefinitely as of 22 Oct 2015</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies in advance for any errors you might encounter as this piece is un-betaed (and my first fanfic).
> 
> I own nothing, etc. etc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this is the first chapter, the writing will likely get better the more I get into it. Stick it out with me. If I disappoint you, you can send me hate mail.

“Is it normal to be this busy? Four broken wrists in one week? All right, yes, this is a prison, but how do these men manage to get into so many accidents?” Doctor John Watson asks, exasperated. 

His assistant, one Molly Hooper, looks up from the other side of the room where she’s checking a sleeping patient’s temperature.

“I’m not quite sure that they’re hurting themselves in accidents, Doctor,” Molly says tentatively.

John frowns. “Sorry?”

Molly bites her lip. “Jim – I mean, Mr. Mo,” she flushes, “He was telling me he’d noticed that these accidents started happening as soon as that new inmate got here, it was an inspired connection, though he really is quite brilliant…”

“Mr. Mo?” John inquires. “I don’t think I’ve met him yet. Friend of yours?”

Pink turns to scarlet as Molly mumbles an unintelligible reply. John changes the subject as he finishes setting his patient’s wrist. “So, the new inmate?”

Molly nods, still embarrassed. “His name was Owens, or something like. I can’t quite remember. He came in last week, two days before you did, I think?”

“So Tuesday, then. Sorry, you were saying?”

“Erm, well Jim Mo – he’s in charge of B Block security – told me that he thought there was something strange about the inmate, and when I told him about all these broken wrists we’ve been getting, he thought that there might be, I dunno, a connection? Somehow?”

John blinks several times. “Molly, you think that this Owens is breaking his fellow inmates’ wrists? Fine, yes, the timing is right, and the patients have come from B Block, but I think we’d have heard of something this obviously violent. All the men I’ve treated so far have told me different reasons for their injuries, but none mentioned this new inmate.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t,” says a new voice from the door.

“Stamford. Mike Stamford,” the newcomer introduces himself. A heavyset, inquisitive-looking fellow, Stamford looks less the type to work in a penitentiary than the kind to keep an office job, round glasses, nice watch and all.

“Hi, yes, I’m John. Watson. I’m the new B Block doctor, just started this week. I don’t think we’ve met before.”

“Yeah, I do C Block’s med stuff. Just down the hall. Heard about your problematic inmate, though, heard you’d gotten quite an influx of patients since he arrived. Read about his case in the news, real bizarre. You heard about it?”

John shakes his head. “Actually, no.”

“Bit of a long story. You almost done with him?” Stamford gestures at John’s patient.

“Yeah, just about finished here. Why?”

“I’ll buy you lunch. It’ll be your first-week-over-and-still-alive reward and I’ll tell you about your inmate. And I’ll bet you’ve got some interesting stories yourself, so…?”

~-~ 

John follows Stamford towards a bright red awning that proudly advertises “Speedy’s Sandwich Bar and Café: Breakfast, Lunch, Pasta”, just a couple streets down from HM Prison Baker at the outskirts of town.

“So you were just discharged this year, right? Couple months ago?” Stamford asks.

“Yeah.” John tries to avoid talking about serving in the army with civilians, as it makes him feel more homesick than being away from his family ever has, but Stamford has been rambling on about his wife’s ridiculous flower arrangements since they left Baker, and John would much rather change the subject.

“So what’s Afghanistan like? Must be real stressful, all that danger right on your doorstep.”

Stress? Sure. John can’t count the number of times he’s been told that he suffers from PTSD, but he knows it’s not true. Which is why he jumped at the chance when he saw that job opening two weeks ago, at Baker Prison. Sitting in his tiny flat in front of his laptop, waiting for his army pension to dry up whilst he tried to find an occupation that suited him and his penchant for danger, was bloody ridiculous. He’d almost had to move in with Harry, who was absolutely intolerable even when she was sober.

Afghanistan really was spectacular, contrary to the common conception of the place. The nonstop heat was bearable, and the endless skies, free from light pollution at night, were dramatic and always dangerous, ready to rain fire and bullets and men down on Captain John Watson and his soldiers.

He misses the feeling of being on his toes all the time, of standing on the edge between life and death, constantly. He misses the Afghan breeze, rare as it was, and the stars in the Afghan sky, brighter than anything he could see in the big city.

He misses his comrades, still back in the Middle East, more than anything.

John snaps back to the present as Stamford repeats his question. The man’s easygoing attitude is contagious, but John isn’t quite prepared to share his time in the army with someone who is a relative stranger.

“So, when you walked into the B Block med ward earlier today, you said that you wouldn’t be surprised if nobody had mentioned the new inmate – Owens, I think Molly said – in regards to the injuries. Why did you say that?”

Stamford lets the change in topic slide and answers John’s question as they sit down in the cheerfully but sparsely decorated café.

“Your convict got himself suspected of a pretty nasty double murder back in December, before you got out of Afghanistan, if you haven’t heard of the case. He used to work with the Met, if you can believe that, and apparently stopped quite a few baddies before he went rogue, but when the Yarders were interviewed, they said that he’d always been a bit unstable and that they only used his help when they were desperate.

“So they try him in court… You know, I can’t remember what his name is. I read all the articles on the case, and I could never remember.”

John looks up from the menu. “I thought Molly said his name was Owens.”

“No, that’s not right. It was a really unusual name, and for the life of me I can’t recall what it was.”

“No worries. Carry on,” John shrugs.

Stamford nods. “Yeah, I’ll remember later. So the man finds himself in court, and he refuses a lawyer, says he’ll fight for himself. And he _gets off the murder charge_. Murder gets you a life sentence, you know, but this crazy, he gets himself found guilty of manslaughter instead – apparently he was attacked by the victims – and the judge only gives him fifteen years. Which is why he’s in B Block now, instead of A Block with the _real_ murderers, but a lot of the general public, myself included, was pretty sure that he wasn’t provoked at all. But the victims’ bodies showed the kind of bruises he described, and he was pretty beat up himself, so the jury believed him.”

John wrinkles his brow. “That’s quite a feat. But you don’t think he was really attacked? Not provoked in any way?”

“Absolutely not. You should see the guy, he’s definitely capable of murder.”

“So, what you were saying earlier today. You wouldn’t be surprised if nobody’d heard anything about him causing problems. Because he’s scared his fellow inmates so much that they won’t incriminate him? Or because he’s got others to cause accidents for him?”

“I don’t know. It’s a real mystery,” Stamford says, wiggling his eyebrows.

~-~ 

After John’s eaten his fill of a rather straightforward sandwich, he thanks Mike Stamford for showing him to the café, Stamford still chatting with the waitress.

When he reaches the door, however, the other doctor spins around in revelation.

“Doctor Watson!”

John turns back to Stamford. “Yes?”

“Your convict. I just remembered his name. I told you it was weird, right?”

Stamford pushes himself out of his chair with a screech of metal against tile, and stands.

“Sherlock Holmes. His name was Sherlock Holmes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This my first fanfic and I don't think it'll turn into all-out slash but at this point I'm not sure where I'm going with this. The other chapters will be longer but I wanted to end here. So.


	2. Chapter 2

“Cell 22, ground floor, B Block.”

John thanks the guard outside the prison’s medical ward and heads across the yard to B Block.

“Doctor Watson!” the guard calls after him in afterthought.

“Yes, Mr. Donovan?”

“Sir, I know you’ve been here for a week now and the warden gave you the tour and all, so this is just a reminder. But you should remember that this is a Category A prison and that all inmates here should be treated as such. I don’t know what you want with Holmes, but he is a very dangerous man and you shouldn’t forget it. Sir.”

John nods, thanks Donovan again, and continues across the prison yard.

~-~ 

B Block looks identical in every way to A Block and C Block, situated between the two and distinguishable only by the sign that blandly states in black capitals the words “HMP BAKER” and below it “B BLOCK”.

The unremarkable grey of the solid cement, coupled with the uniformly tiny windows scattered across both floors, boldly proclaims the two-storey-high building a prison.

John steps through the front entrance with a nod to the guards outside. 

Inside is drafty and exactly as grey as the exterior. The rectangular building contains one hallway, aligned with the front wall, with four other passages perpendicularly situated, running down the length of the building. Cells line each of these, twenty on each side, John has been told, all alike. Each contains a low bed, a plastic chair, and a desk, the outer cells with the small slit of a window at the back. Nevertheless, cells at Baker Prison are not the worst living conditions, almost resembling tight university dorms if it weren’t for the thick metal bars at the front.

Inmates at Baker are single-celled, with only one man living in each cell. This is in an attempt to minimize violence, as most Baker prisoners are violent offenders, but given the stories John’s been told today, by Mike Stamford and Molly Hooper, it doesn’t seem to be working.

Though Baker operates on a closed-prison system, inmates in good standing are allowed out of their cells during certain hours, though the yard where they are given free time is highly guarded. Baker prides itself on never having had an escape, though many inmates from other prisons have transferred here after attempted jailbreaks.

John walks down the left side of the main hallway, takes the last corridor, and walks the few meters down to the second cell. Most of the inmates are asleep at this time, but the cell that John is currently facing is empty.

Taped to the concrete wall between the barred fronts of cells 22 and 23 is a short notice in Baker Prison administrative stationery.

_Inmate Sherlock Holmes is sanctioned to be at Conference Room 1 with Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade, visitor, from 22:00 to 23:00._

The warden’s signature is scribbled underneath, a crisply official _Mycroft Lestrade_ reflecting precisely the writer’s character.

John spares a moment to wonder if this DI Lestrade is related to the warden before checking his watch. It is five minutes before eleven, but there is no sign of footsteps in the outer corridor, so John takes a look inside the cell, to gain any kind of insight into this Holmes’ character.

Cell 22-1-B contains little to suggest its state of habitation. Twisting his neck, John can see two books under the bed. Other than this, there is nothing to distinguish the cell from the others it shares a hall with.

“Cozy, don’t you think?” says a rich baritone voice from behind John.

John spins, mentally scolding himself for allowing himself to be snuck up on. He’s – or was, anyhow – a soldier, and he’s let himself be surprised in a prison, of all places.

The man standing in front of the doctor captures his attention entirely.

First impression: tall, very. John is the not shortest man he knows, but he’s certainly not one of the greatest in height, though it’s not often that he finds himself feeling so very dwarfed by another. His eyes find the man’s face. Everything about him says _sharp_ , from those intense eyes – blue? Are they blue? – to cheekbones that should look ridiculous, or would, John thinks, on any other man.

That hair, too. Wild, falling in long, lazy curls of dark chocolate.

John blinks. Since when does he ever wax poetic on the appearances of men? Though he’s rarely attracted to them, so he can’t really judge.

He notices that the pale man standing in front of him is wearing the prison-issue grey overalls of a convict. So _this_ is Sherlock Holmes.

Considerably not what he’d expected.

Holmes sweeps a nearly derisive gaze over John.

“All right, Sherlock, in you go,” says the man who arrived with Holmes. Shorter than the convict, he has an air of quiet authority, not diminished by the presence of greying hair.

“Detective Inspector Lestrade?” John guesses.

The DI looks at John’s uniform. “Yeah. You’re the doctor, right?” 

“Just got here last week, but yes.”

Holmes, standing in front of the cell, moves his head minutely in John’s direction, as if almost interested.

Lestrade moves in front of him and unlocks the barred door, nudging Holmes in. 

The DI nods at John. “Sorry, did you need something?”

John looks at Holmes again, who is staring back unnervingly.

“Er, yeah. I was actually here for him,” John says, gesturing towards Holmes, now standing inside the cell. The door clangs shut before sealing electronically.

“You wanted to talk to him?”

“Sure, yes. Sorry, isn’t there supposed to be a guard with every inmate that leaves his cell?” John remembers, from his introduction to the prison.

Lestrade hesitates. “Usually, yes, but Mycroft trusts me.”

“Ah. You’re close?”

Holmes, listening from behind bars, snorts.

“They are. Very.”

Lestrade manages to remain composed.

John realizes his mistake too late. So Warden Lestrade and the Detective Inspector are together. Hence the common surname. Fine.

“Sorry,” he says. “So, yeah, I wanted to talk to Holmes. You think I could just stand here for a few minutes? I got the warden’s okay.”

The other man nods. “Yeah, sure. D’you want a stool or something?”

John shakes his head. “I’ll be quick.”

“Okay. You know any good pubs nearby, by the way? I’m not really from around here.”

John shakes his head.

“Right, thanks anyway. Don’t let Sherlock get under your skin too much.”

Lestrade turns, heads down the hallway and around the corner before John can ask him what he means. A few seconds later, the heavy main door slams and it’s just the convict and John.

~-~ 

“Afghanistan or Iraq?”

Sherlock Holmes is sitting on the bed in his cell, openly staring at John.

John freezes, frowns. “Sorry?”

“Which was it, Afghanistan or Iraq?”

Suddenly the chilly hallways of B Block seem narrower. John studies the man in the cell, but Sherlock Holmes is inscrutable, still as a sculpture and just as finely cut. The bars between the two men seem awfully insubstantial at this point, and John feels as if the inmate’s gaze is dissecting him, peeling his layers away and prodding at his insides. 

John doesn’t trust himself to answer Holmes’ question, as something tell him that he’ll end up spilling his whole life story to this strange man.

John Watson doesn’t scare easily. Not in Afghanistan, when he was, more often than not, hiding out with his fellow soldiers, bombs falling from aircraft above and bullets flying from the front and back, detonations all around. Not in the heat of battle, shooting and getting shot at. Not even when he got shot.

John keeps his cool well, well enough to stitch up friends in the middle of war zones.

So. John doesn’t scare easily. Consequently, he isn’t afraid now. In fact, if he was being honest with himself, he’d say that he’s excited, fascinated.

He doesn’t answer Holmes’ question, though, since he doesn’t plan on getting friendly with a convict, no matter how interesting.

“Mr. Holmes,” John begins.

The convict leers. “Sherlock, please.”

John decides that he does not like Sherlock Holmes. He pointedly starts again.

“Mr. Holmes, I’m not here to make friends, so I’m not expecting much from you. However, I would like to hear your account of the events that landed you here at Baker, starting in December.”

Holmes stands slowly, walking to the front of the cell. John feels swiftly dwarfed by the taller man, who manages to loom over the doctor while still behind bars.

“Why? You’ve already heard the story.”

John doesn’t ask Holmes how he knows this. “I’m interested in your side of it. Start with your profession. What did you do before?”

Holmes looks John up and down, raises his eyebrows just the slightest. “What does a wounded army doctor care about the tragic life story of just one of the hundreds of convicts in Baker Prison?”

John crosses his arms. “Maybe it’s official business.”

“Maybe it’s not,” counters Holmes. “You’re off duty now, obviously, so why spend any more time at a place like Baker than necessary if you weren’t interested? You’re intrigued by something. Intrigued by me.”

John bristles, more at the realization that Holmes is correct than the overt display of ego.

Holmes continues. “Doctor John Watson. Late of the British Army in Afghanistan, discharged two months ago due to injury in the shoulder. Living alone with an illegal firearm and a psychosomatic limp, family with a history of alcoholism. One older sibling, single, bisexual but closeted, and intrigued by one Sherlock Holmes of Cell 22-1-B, Baker Prison. How’d I do?”

John thinks, _brilliant!_

“How on earth did you know that?” is what he says.

“Heard your name around and given your remarks to Lestrade, clearly you’re the Doctor Watson we’ve been hearing about. The way you stand says military, obviously been abroad given the tanning but no dark above the wrist, so not sunbathing. Tan’s not as defined as it could be and you stand like a soldier but long enough living as a civilian that you’re more relaxed, so two months out, give or take. Injury in the shoulder’s obvious, but you didn’t take the stool when Lestrade offered it even though your limp was apparent enough when you came in, so at least partially psychosomatic, implies traumatic circumstances. So. Afghanistan or Iraq, clearly.

“You asked me what my profession was. Consulting detective, the only one in the world. I invented the job. Means when the police are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me. Still do, even while I’m locked up here.”

John is, quite honestly, stunned.

He manages a few words. “Brilliant!” And, “How did you know about the rest?”

 _Damn._ Not what he’d planned on saying, but this convict has a way of opening him up, lowering his inhibitions.

Holmes smirks. “You’re off duty now; the night shift doc arrived an hour ago to talk to Anderson up at the main door. Not too eager to get back home then, though you seem the type to enjoy company, so living alone, no wife or girlfriend to go home to. The older sibling was obvious; I’m a second child myself, I know the signs. Wasn’t sure about the gun earlier but now I am, you twitched when I mentioned it earlier.”

“So you guessed?”

“I don’t _guess_.”

The expression on Holmes’ face could wither an entire greenhouse.

“You’re used to being around heavy drinkers,” Holmes continues, “given your choices of vocabulary, though you’re obviously an educated man, implying that you’ve lived with at least a few constant drunks. Alcoholics tend to lose their social skills even when they aren’t drunk. You also flinched slightly when Lestrade asked you about a bar, probably didn’t even notice you had, but it was there. You’ve had quite enough of alcohol in your life. So, could have been your mates in the Middle East, but you seem more the type to keep sober friends. Alcoholic family it is, then.

“And then earlier, when you realized that Lestrade and dear old Mycroft were together, you blushed a little, not in the homophobic way but the understanding way, there’s a difference. Didn’t mention it though, so closeted. I wasn’t sure if you were bisexual or just gay, though. That you’re bi was just speculation on my part.”

John’s irritated now. “Most people aren’t too eager to share their sexuality with a convict, _convict_.”

“Mmm. Denial. Proves I’m right.” The look on Holmes’ face is just too much for John.

Lack of social skills, indeed. Not just limited to alcoholics. Holmes may be brilliant, but he’s oblivious to John’s feelings.

John decides that this meeting isn’t going so well. He takes a deep breath and resolves to return later.

He manages to turn around and walk back down the corridor, resisting the urge to run back and smack that smug bastard in Cell 22-1-B.

The guard that had let him in earlier raises an eyebrow as John stalks crossly out of B Block, cane clanging loudly on the ground.

~-~ 

John arrives at Baker early the next day and heads to the warden’s office.

Mycroft Lestrade looks up from his desk, which is as immaculate as the man. “Doctor Watson. You’re early.”

The warden is tall, taller than Holmes, even, though rather rounder around the middle, and impeccably dressed. The first time John had met the man, he’d struck him as the kind of person to avoid getting on the wrong side of. From what he’s heard of him, this is absolutely true. There are rumors among the Baker workers that his PA, Anthea, is as lethal as she is hot and that the umbrella that Warden Lestrade carries, rain or shine, contains a hidden saber.

“Yes, sir. I was wondering if I could look at the intake files for B Block,” John says, skipping past the pleasantries.

Mycroft raises an eyebrow. “Reason?”

Before John can answer, however, the warden speaks again.

“Ah. You’ve been to see Sherlock Holmes, haven’t you? Last night, if I’m not mistaken. Tell me, what was your impression of him?”

John decides that he’s stepped into a madhouse. Since when do normal people know what others have been doing at a glance? Or maybe his visit to Holmes has made him easier to read, to everyone.

Then again, clearly neither the warden nor Sherlock Holmes are the average person.

“I don’t know. I didn’t spend that much time with him. Sir.”

Mycroft nods. “It does take a while to get used to him, wouldn’t you think?”

John waits.

“Sherlock Holmes’ file is kept separate from the other intake files. I assume that it is his file that you wish to examine?”

John nods, and Mycroft stands, turns, and pulls a thick cream-colored file from the top cabinet behind the desk.

“This file is quite a bit larger than most of the others pertaining to inmates here at Baker. Some of the information is quite, shall we say, sensitive, and I am trusting you a great deal in allowing you to take this out of my office. However, I’ve heard good things about you from Molly and I’ve read reports from your commanding officers in Afghanistan, so I will trust you with this and hope that you will keep character and remain a man of integrity.”

He passes the folder to John, who is surprised at how heavy it is.

“Thank you, sir.”

Mycroft nods curtly. “I will need that file back before your shift starts, Doctor Watson. Please do not remove it from the building.”

~-~ 

The first page is the basic prisoner intake sheet, detailing dates of crimes committed, arrests, trials, and entrance, along with names and dates and basic details, etcetera.

Even in a mug shot, Sherlock Holmes manages to look disdainfully beautiful. 

John tells his head to shut up.

He notes an unexpected history of cocaine use and cigarette addiction.

The second page is full of associations, including several family members. Holmes’ parents are deceased, but John finds the older brother that Holmes had mentioned and is surprised to find the name listed as one Mycroft Lestrade, né Holmes, warden of HMP Baker, which accounts for the warden’s apprehension in allowing John to view this particular file. John wonders why Mycroft has chosen to change his last name to match Greg’s, given that of the two, the warden seems more strong-willed. Something to think about later, or maybe to ask the DI if he sees him again.

Now that John knows that Sherlock and Mycroft are related, he can see the resemblance, not in appearance, but in the brothers’ natural air of authority, in the way their eyes seem to pierce a subject intently and in the way they both manage to unnerve John, easily.

He flips to the next page and finds a half sheet of paper, handwritten and titled “Friends”. There are only three names on the page. John is surprised to see Gregory Lestrade’s name on the list, along with a Marie Hudson and a Ryan Wiggins.

The other side of the page is labeled “Colleagues” and includes a substantially longer list of names, none of which John recognizes.

The page underneath the half-sheet details the crime for which Holmes is currently doing time for at Baker. 

The description is succinct, telling the bare minimum. Two bodies found in a vacant flat in central London, each bruised in various locations and throats cut. The murder weapon, a commonplace kitchen knife, was found directly next to the victims, who were later identified as Jefferson Hope and Jack McGinty, one a London cabbie and the other an American businessman, with no obvious connection. The Met had had prints off the knife as soon as they arrived, and matched it to a set of prints already in their database, a previous multiple-time drug offender named Sherlock Holmes, at that time a regular consultant to DI Lestrade’s division.

John re-reads the review. The way Holmes had left evidence lying next to the victims’ bodies, the careless way he left prints on the knife, conflict with everything he’s heard and seen about the man.

If Sherlock Holmes had wanted to commit murder, he seemed the kind of man to do it logically, well planned out. He’d have hid as much data as he could, and he certainly wouldn’t have been caught less than twenty-four hours after the crime had been committed.

But he had been, hadn’t he?

John sets the file on his lap, itching with curiosity, studying the sheet in front of him. He was going to have to visit Holmes again, whether he liked it or not.

Had Sherlock Holmes deliberately left the evidence?

And if so, had he wanted to be caught?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so I've managed to get another chapter up. Thought it wouldn't end up happening but here we are.


	3. Chapter 3

John goes on to the next sheet in Holmes’ file, and realizes that the page he’s just finished reading is only a brief summary of the crime. Several more pages, detailing in tiny print precise locations, times, analyses, and interviews, follow the one he’s just finished.

After these is a description of the arrest.

Holmes had come quietly, the report says. Detective Inspector Lestrade had found him at his home address, gazing calmly out the window to the street, a few unidentified papers burning in the fireplace.

He’d been holding his violin at his side and had said not a word when the Met took him away to be questioned.

The flat, when it had been searched, revealed nothing to incriminate the man who lived there, but a handwritten note in the margin of the document notes that Holmes isn’t the tidiest of men and that it is not improbable that the police had missed something in the disaster zone that barely passed for a living space.

They’d found blood in his kitchen sink, but after examination, it was found to be Holmes’.

A transcript of the interrogation was at the back of the cream folder, something John was sure was not included in most intake files, but he was already sure that Mycroft had made a few additions to his brother’s file.

DI Lestrade had personally taken care of the examination, though there was little of interest obtained through the process. Lestrade had noted at the end that though he’d personally worked with Holmes for five years, he knew very little about the man’s inner workings. 

Oddly enough, he’d also mentioned that he believed them to be friends, corroborating Mycroft’s “Friends/Acquaintances” half sheet.

John wonders why Holmes had been sent to the prison where his own brother, consort to one of his only friends, held the position of warden.

~-~ 

Later, John checks his watch. His work shift starts in fifteen minutes.

He closes the file, regretfully having only skimmed through more than half of its ample contents. Sherlock Holmes’ brother is a thorough man, and seems to have kept records of almost everything, even tenuously related to the case, that his convicted relation has ever done.

John picks up his cane and heads back towards the warden’s office.

~-~ 

“Did you find what you were looking for, Doctor Watson?” Mycroft opens his office door, just as John is about to knock on his door, and joins him in the hallway.

“I’m not sure, sir.” And John isn’t. He’s practically read Sherlock Holmes’ life story, and though he knows quite a bit more than what he already knew about the man, his understanding of him is limited. There is little that he can use to predict his motives or analyze his character.

He hands the thick folder back to Mycroft, who gives John a curt nod.

John turns to leave the building to check in with his night-shift counterpart.

“One moment, Doctor.”

“Sorry, sir?” He’s going to be late if he doesn’t move quickly.

Mycroft waves his hand. “Don’t worry about being late. I want to talk to you.”

John’s brow folds. “About Sherlock Holmes?”

“Ah. Well, yes.” Mycroft seems more uncomfortable than John had thought him capable of seeming. A crack in the aloof, controlled façade that the man always manages to maintain.

“Sherlock Holmes is my brother, as I presume you know by now.”

John nods.

“He seems to have taken an interest in you, Doctor Watson. I was informed by Anderson last night at B Block that you remained inside the building for–” Mycroft pulls a little notebook out of his pocket, “–twenty-six minutes. My partner, Gregory, was with Sherlock for four of those, but the fact is that you managed to tolerate my brother for more than three times longer than most people do. That Sherlock hadn’t made an active effort to drive you off was quite unusual for him.

I understand that you are planning on visiting him again at some point, and I would be willing to pay you a meaningful sum of money if you would be so kind as to ask a few questions of him. Discreetly, of course.”

John frowns at this. “You’d pay me to talk to your own brother? Sorry, sir, but why can’t you ask him yourself?”

Mycroft lifts his ever-present umbrella and studies its tip. “We have what you might call a difficult relationship, Doctor Watson,” he says, after a beat.

“What kinds of questions, sir? I’m not going to spy on your brother for money, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Not at all, Doctor,” Mycroft interrupts smoothly. “I worry about him. Call it familial concern.”

“With all due respect, I don’t believe that. Sir.” John crosses his arms and waits for an explanation.

The warden’s gaze sharpens. “Doctor Watson. In all honesty, I want to know why my brother killed two apparently innocent men. Now, Sherlock has, in the past, self-labeled himself a sociopath, but while I am aware that he and his actions have been morally ambiguous at times, I believe that he does have a conscience. You did not see the bodies of the cabbie and the American, but I can assure you that there was brutality there. My brother did not do it, or at least, not all of it. I need to know what exactly it was that happened in December. Sherlock has been rather unresponsive to every attempt to solicit information thus far, and you are the best hope for extracting that information at this point.”

John shifts on his feet, crosses his arms. He considers what Mycroft has just said.

“I’ll figure out what I can,” he concedes. He’d been trying to do just that last night, anyway, and if what he discovers isn’t too sensitive, it can’t hurt to share it with the warden.

Mycroft’s mouth might or might not twitch upwards minutely towards a tiny smile. He tilts his head to the doctor.

“Much inclined, Doctor Watson,” he says.

John cuts him off, regardless of the fact that Mycroft is his superior.

“I’m not going to take your money, sir. I’m not going to hide questions in conversation with Holmes, and I’m not going to coerce him into telling me anything. If I learn anything that won’t violate his privacy, I’ll tell you. But that information will come willingly from Holmes, because he chooses to express it to me. And honestly, sir, even if I did try to trick him in revealing anything, I think that your brother would be too perceptive to be fooled.”

John briskly nods to the warden before he can respond. “I’d better get to the medical ward, sir.”

~-~ 

Mycroft Lestrade watches John’s retreating back until the sound of footsteps fade and the echo of the building’s outer door reaches him. He looks down at the file with his brother’s name printed across it.

Anthea’s heels briskly clip down the hallway towards her boss. “Problem, sir?”

Mycroft examines his PA. She doesn’t look up from her Blackberry, fingers swiftly manipulating the keys.

Mycroft had first hired Anthea more than a decade ago, back when he was a Holmes. Since then, he has been through three jobs, lost both parents, found love, and put his younger brother through rehab. Throughout, his PA – and so much more – has proved extraordinarily loyal and competent. Mycroft knows that most of his operations, outside of as well as inside Baker Prison, are largely dependent on Anthea and her efficiency.

Now Mycroft informs Anthea of the situation with his brother and the doctor.

“Do keep an eye on them, Anthea,” he finishes.

“Who, sir?”

Mycroft takes a breath. “Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson. That doctor has the potential to make my brother worse than ever.”

“Of course, sir.”

Mycroft dismisses her absently with a nod. Anthea walks away without another word, Blackberry keys clicking rapidly.

Mycroft steps back into his office. The door closes with a gentle snap. Mycroft Lestrade doesn’t often question himself, but he wonders if giving his new doctor Sherlock’s file was a good idea.

An interesting man, that doctor. Mycroft decides that, despite the rather ordinary exterior, his new hire may prove to contain hidden depths.

Doctor John Watson is currently in a very powerful position, whether he knows it or not.

~-~ 

Alarming news waits in the medical ward, though John is thus far unaware of it.

Molly is already there when John arrives. She looks up from a clipboard at the foot of a hospital-regulation-height bed.

“Hi, John.”

John smiles tersely. “Sorry I’m late, Molly.”

She nods. “It’s okay. I got a call from the warden earlier.”

“Thanks,” he says.

Molly crosses the room and opens one of the filing cabinets bolted down along the back wall, and retrieves another clipboard, handing it to John.

John accepts the night doctor’s report from her. Before he can read it, however, he realizes that four of the five patients who had been in the ward yesterday are no longer in. Blue sheets lie flat across the empty beds. The four, he notes, that had received broken wrists in the last few days.

He turns to Molly, but she’s anticipated his question.

Wide-eyed, she preempts him. “They’re dead, Doctor.”

“Sorry?” John asks stupidly. Did Molly just say _dead?_ Clearly they couldn’t be talking about the same people.

Molly proves him wrong, unfortunately.

“The broken wrists, John. Doctor Sun found them last night, still in their beds. He’d just stepped out for a couple minutes, needed to take a call, he said, and when he’d gotten back, they were gone.”

“Gone?”

“Dead, I mean, sorry. They were dead, just still, lying there in the beds and they didn’t move. Doctor Sun found puncture marks in all of them, in their right arms. Everything was locked up but when he checked, four hypodermics were missing.”

John blinks, takes a deep breath. “The bodies were checked for cause of death?”

Molly nods. “I checked them myself, sir. I – I worked in a mortuary before here.”

“And?”

She flushes a little. “One hundred milliequivalents of potassium chloride injected into each of them, sir. They use it in America–”

“For capital punishment, yes, thanks. Barbaric system.” John shakes his head.

They look at each other for a few seconds.

“Any idea who did it?” John asks.

Molly shakes her head, looks down.

John scans the clipboard, which affirms Molly’s report, and passes her to put it back in the cabinet. She turns and follows him with her eyes, which light up suddenly.

“Jim was here last night, like usual. He told me he was just outside the building and he might’ve seen something near the entrance, just a shadow, he said, but he couldn’t make it out and when he went to check, there was nothing there,” she says.

John nods absently. “You said everything was locked up? Before and after it happened?”

Molly’s head bobs quickly.

“Nothing was forced?” he questions.

“Not that I know of. Must’ve stolen a key or something, right?”

John wonders if it is possible that the killer had already had a key. Spare keys to anything, even medical cabinets, are rarely to be found lying around in a prison complex, and Baker is no exception, especially given its Category A designation. He tries to dismiss the idea that a Baker employee could have a motive to kill four injured inmates, much less actually carry the action out. The thought sticks, however, and lingers in the back of his consciousness.

John expresses the notion to Molly, but she has no ideas on the matter, refusing to believe ill of her colleagues. John remains somewhat thoughtful on the topic but stays silent.

The sole patient now in the ward had been asleep throughout the night and had seen nothing. He is almost completely recovered from a bout of influenza and will likely be released back to Cell Block B tomorrow. John and Molly occupy themselves with organizing the shelves, in acute need for something to do.

~-~ 

During his lunch break, John gives in and heads toward B Block to find a certain intriguing criminal. As he nears, however, he hears sound coming from the exercise yard behind the cell block and realizes that the inmates will currently be out for what is ironically called “free time”.

John veers off to the side in order to see into the yard.

Surrounded on three sides by double rows of high fences topped with concertina wire and on the fourth by the cell block building, the recreation yard is as harshly grey and spartan as the building in which the inmates live. The yard is completely level and encloses two basketball courts in the paved half and a grassy football field in the other. The only objects in the yard are the nondescript spherical balls used for both basketball and football. CCTV cameras mounted at the top of the barriers watch the inmates.

All inmates in good standing in Baker Prison are allowed, during “free time”, to visit the prison’s library or their block’s exercise yard. Most choose the latter.

Inmates in solitary confinement are not allowed out for the duration of their penalty terms, at the end of which they return to their respective blocks.

John watches the faces behind the fences for several minutes, but is unable to sight Sherlock Holmes among the swarm of men. He sees plenty of tall inmates, but none with that distinctive head of dark, tangled curls.

After a few more minutes of searching with his eyes, to no avail, John turns away. Sherlock Holmes, from what John has read, is quite not of the norm. He walks in the direction of the library.

A sharp wind breaks out as John crosses the courtyard, coiling around him as he pulls his uniform jacket closer around himself. He looks up. The sky is too flat, clouds present but artificial, as if sent from an unseen projector somewhere on the ground. It looks like it might rain, but John doesn’t expect it of this sky.

The library is built of the same materials as the rest of the buildings in the prison. The small sign by the doorway quietly states the structure’s purpose.

Holmes isn’t inside the library either, however, as John discovers after a quick consultation with the guards at the entrance.

~-~ 

Back at B Block, John decides to take a look at the inside of Cell 22-1-B, since now the block and cell lights will be on fully, as opposed to the dim glow of the night lights last night.

Anderson, the guard from last night, is not on duty, though that’s to be expected.

Inside is quieter than last night, empty of even the snores and stirs of sleeping prisoners. The back of the block echoes with the sounds of the inmates in the adjacent exercise yard that John had peeked into earlier.

When he reaches the twenty-second cell on the ground floor, however, John is surprised to find the cell occupied.

Sherlock Holmes lies on his bed, head away from the closed cell door, on top of his white sheets. Legs outstretched and ankles crossed, his fingertips are pressed together under his chin, and he doesn’t open his closed eyes when he speaks.

“Doctor.”

John collects himself and reciprocates, “Mr. Holmes.”

Neither of them speak for several long seconds.

John breaks the silence, clumsily. “I thought all inmates in the main blocks were out now. Free time.”

“So?”

The reply throws John slightly. “So… you aren’t out with them.”

“Yes,” Holmes responds shortly.

“Why?” John asks, a bit put off by the curt response.

Holmes finally sits up, slowly, eyes flicking back and forth rapidly as he scans the doctor. “Boring. Easier to think without the dim noises of three hundred and forty-three idiots lacking in brains crowding my own. You’ve been to see Mycroft, haven’t you?”

The non sequitur catches John off guard. He folds his arms and finds himself an adequate response. “He’s my boss.”

“Mm.” Holmes settles back down on the bed and closes his eyes. “Tedious.”

“Sorry?”

“Don’t lie.”

John steps closer to the bars and notes for the first time that the door is slightly ajar. “Mycroft Lestrade is my boss. That’s not a lie.”

Holmes exhales softly through his lips. “It also isn’t the reason you went to see him, though,” he points out.

“I’m not going to ask how you know that.”

The convict doesn’t respond. Another long silence ensues while John mentally fidgets and Sherlock Holmes appears to have turned off.

John remembers why he’s come looking for Holmes. “Could you come out for a few minutes? Door’s unlocked, obviously. I want to talk. Bit awkward with these bars between us…” he trails off.

Holmes’ hooded eyelids flutter. “Why don’t you just come in yourself, Doctor?” he drawls, his voice sardonic.

_Well, if he wants to play that way…_ John takes a hold of one of the door bars and pulls the door towards him. “I think I will.”

Eyes flying open, Holmes snaps upright once again. “What do you want?” he snaps, obviously not having expected John to take him at his word and enter his cell.

John steps inside. The cell grants its occupants a very different perspective of the corridor outside it and the cells opposite. In the light of the caged bulb a couple feet above John’s head, he can see that Cell 22-1-B is not quite as identical to the others in the block as he’d thought last night.

The wooden desk at the back, which had been almost lost in shadow in the dimness of yesterday, is covered with several papers and what might possibly be a manila folder, scattered inelegantly across its surface. Deep scratch marks peek out from beneath the documents, though John is unsure if these have been caused by the current occupant of the cell or a previous user. Also on the desk are a felt-tip pen and a piece of writing charcoal, meant to replace, in high-security prisons such as HMP Baker, the more hazardous pencil.

John wonders if A Block, where convicted murderers are incarcerated at Baker, allows even the pen or just the charcoal, which brings him back around to the question of whether Holmes belongs there instead of here, in B Block.

He turns to the criminal in question, who is now sitting facing John, long legs swung off the bed, which, viewed from the front, is on the right side of the cell. John stands on the left.

He answers the convict. “I want to talk,” he repeats.

Holmes scowls slightly. “Fine, we’ll talk. We’ll talk about Mycroft. Did he offer you money to spy on me?”

“How did you know about that?” John asks, incredulously.

Ignoring his question, Holmes continues. “Did you take it?”

John crosses his arms, uncrosses them, then does it again. “No,” he says finally.

The inmate raises his eyebrows. “Why not?”

“That’s not who I am,” John says simply.

Holmes somehow manages to sprawl across the bedspread whilst remaining upright at the same time. “Fantastic, I’ve got a man with a _conscience_ looking after my welfare,” he intones sarcastically.

“I’m not looking after your welfare, Holmes,” John states flatly. He’s fairly sure it’s true.

“No?”

“No.”

“Mm,” Holmes says again. “So, was I right?”

John stares at the man sitting in front of him. “About?”

“Last night. Did I get anything wrong?”

John goes along with it and thinks back to yesterday. At least Holmes hasn’t kicked him out yet.

_“Doctor John Watson. Late of the British Army in Afghanistan, discharged two months ago due to injury in the shoulder. Living alone with an illegal firearm and a psychosomatic limp, family with a history of alcoholism. One older sibling, single, bisexual but closeted, and intrigued by one Sherlock Holmes of Cell 22-1-B, Baker Prison.”_

John runs through the list in his head.

“I was shot in the left shoulder in Afghanistan. Harry’s a drinker, so are my parents. I am single and yes, all right, I’m bi, but I wouldn’t have told you that if you hadn’t already guessed. I’m a doctor, so I suppose I know that my limp is psychosomatic, and I have two guns back at my flat. One of them’s legal.”

Holmes makes a pleased noise. “Spot on, then. Didn’t expect to be right about everything.”

“I got back from duty three months ago.” John is unable to hide a small smirk.

The convict hits his small, flat pillow with his fist. “ _Three_. Three months. Amateur of me, should’ve known from the haircut.”

“Yeah, fine. Could I ask you a few questions?”

“There’s always something,” Holmes growls, though not, John suspects, at him.

“Holmes!” John says, exasperated. “Look, I don’t have to talk to you here. We could be having a recorded interrogation in one of Baker’s unpleasant little conference rooms with the warden looking over my shoulder.”

Holmes refuses to break pattern and interjects with another utterly unrelated comment. “I asked you to call me Sherlock.”

John is absolutely ready to snap by now. “I’m not interested in getting to know you, thanks.”

Holmes’ mouth twitches. “Lovely. Fire away.”

It takes John a moment to realize that Holmes has unexpectedly decided to go along with his inquires. He doesn’t question it, though. It’d be a waste to let this opportunity go before Holmes decides he doesn’t want anything to do with John. After all, he’s pretty sure that they both know that the only reason Holmes is speaking to him at all is to ease his own boredom.

Both men still, quieted by their earlier banter. Even Holmes’ dynamic seems held back, albeit tautly, in anticipation of the questions to come.

There’s nothing to do now but start, John decides. Best to be straightforward about it.

“Will you tell me what happened on the sixth of December?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies, this one's a bit shorter.

**_Interlude: 6 December, last year_ **

Sherlock runs after the taxicab that is presently tearing away from the kerb into the crowded swarm of vehicles.

The idiots at the Yard never showed up to the meeting place, though it was to be expected of that dimwit Dimmock who’d taken over the case when Lestrade had had to take leave due to a family crisis. Sherlock berates himself for allowing his mouth to run away from himself, but hadn’t Lestrade’s wife _clearly_ been cheating on the man? Obviously he’d underestimated the power of human stupidity, however, and in the process lost his only ally in this case.

And now Sherlock is on his own, though he supposes that the extra manpower couldn’t possibly be worth the excess stupidity spilling over the edges of that incompetent. Dimmock could give Anderson a run for his money.

Refocusing, as Sherlock cuts through an alley, he flips through the information at hand, body on autopilot.

The man he’s chasing, a London cabbie named Jefferson Hope, has taken a week to track down, an unforgivably long time to waste on a single criminal, but Sherlock has stuck with it because these days, London criminals have no creativity. Hence the week-long manhunt.

It’s been years since Sherlock’s chased a serial killer, a truly clever one, and he loves this, loves the rush. Danger is so much better than cocaine, though the Holmes family doctor doesn’t support either.

Sometimes, Sherlock wishes that he isn’t the only one who feels this way, but every therapist that Mycroft has forced him to visit has said that this particular trait of Sherlock’s is anomalous. Most of the time, he doesn’t care.

Occasionally, he does, and this is a problem.

This particular serial killer, Sherlock has seen once, during which time he allowed him to leave unharmed due to a mistake that he is rather thankful for Scotland Yard’s ignorance of. He should have realized how low the probability was that a cab would stop on that particular street corner for such a period of time. He should have interrogated the passenger, asked him why the cab had stopped.

Sherlock knows that thinking about what he should have done is juvenile but he can’t help himself. He’d been _so_ close.

The glimpse of the man in the driver’s seat was the one piece of real information he’d gained that day, though Sherlock hadn’t seen the significance until much later, after chasing dead ends and spending a lot of time on his couch, arm covered with nicotine patches.

Tonight, however, he is positive of the killer’s identity. Tonight, it will end, and tomorrow, Sherlock will go back to boredom.

~-~ 

John listens to Holmes’s narrative, which is dynamic yet concise, charged with personality and vigor. John is silent but not unresponsive. After imparting to John the background details of the case, Holmes explains his preliminary investigations that had lead up to that final, fatal night.

And then he stops, and John, who’s been feeling the energy of that night, imagining himself actually running down the streets of London with Holmes, is cut off from that feeling of utter excitement.

Holmes has been sitting, elbows on his knees, leaning towards John in the narrow cell. Now he stands and John is again reminded of the man’s height, emphasized by his slenderness.

Holmes looks down at John. John peers up at Holmes.

“Something wrong?” John asks.

Holmes makes a noncommittal sound, almost uneasily, which John finds unnerving given the man’s normal ease of confidence.

A long pause, and then the convict speaks. “You need to get out.”

John blinks, stares up at the man. “Sorry? Have I done something wrong?”

Holmes makes another of his awkward noises and attempts to glare at the doctor, but the glare seems halfhearted, another sign that something is off with the man.

“You need to leave. Now.”

Holmes has just started to talk, to open up. John isn’t about to go without another word.

Then he realizes that this is the reason why Holmes has stopped. He’d been caught up in his own story, only just now realizing just how much he’s shared with John, how much he’s shown of himself. What might not be so much from John’s point of view could be quite a stretch of faith for a man of Holmes’ habits.

Sherlock Holmes is afraid of opening up, of losing enigma.

John wonders if he is also worried that he will give away too much. After all, from what he’s seen of the man, it seems very likely that he was not sentenced for the right crime. _Manslaughter or murder?_ He remembers what Stamford had told him yesterday, that Holmes was definitely capable of murder.

He’s inclined to agree with him. Even though he wouldn’t like to, even though he might actually be enjoying the company of Holmes, regardless of the man’s erratic attitudes and behaviors.

His gut tells him that something is amiss, however, and he intends to follow this feeling.

John is seriously tempted to protest Holmes’ dismissal, to stay here in Cell 22-1-B until Holmes has told him the whole story, but given the expression on the other man’s face at present, he decides against it.

He checks his watch, which gives him another reason to return to the medical ward. His lunch break is almost over.

John executes a quarter-turn and walks out of the cell, but not before telling Holmes that he doesn’t intend this to be his last visit.

The inmate, stone-faced, does not answer.

~-~ 

Sherlock sits back down on his bed with a muffled thump. He leans back, the back of his head cracking against the cement wall, but he doesn’t notice.

This doctor, John Watson, shouldn’t be such a mystery, so difficult to analyze. He’s _ordinary_ , so ordinary it should make Sherlock nauseous, but for some reason that eludes him, he wants him back in his cell, wants to tell him _everything_.

This little man, this stranger, this _pedestrian_ , is taking up an unacceptable amount of Sherlock’s energy. He’s allowed himself to get lost in memories, to show those memories to someone else. The amount of trust this already entails makes Sherlock shudder inwardly.

What if he shares too much?

Sherlock Holmes does not share, especially not himself, but the doctor has an unnerving ability to make Sherlock do just that, and this scares him.

Right now, his own operations are at a critical stage. Four other inmates have already been sent to take him down, though his adversary will have to try quite a bit harder to achieve his goal. Sherlock is disappointed, in fact, that such a clumsy approach had been attempted, though he knows that, fortunately, the game will soon become more difficult to navigate.

Sherlock allows himself a small smile.

It’s been months since the opening move and they’re still just barely beginning. Sherlock cannot afford to be distracted in any way by the doctor.

He files John away somewhere in the back of his mind, though Sherlock has a feeling that the man will find some way to float back to the top eventually.

~-~ 

John attempts to visit Holmes again, at the same time the next day, but he isn’t in his cell, nor in the library, and he can only assume that the inmate is in the throng outside in the B Block exercise yard, where Baker employees are not allowed to enter.

John borrows the Sherlock Holmes file again instead, to read the rest of it thoroughly, in the hopes of finding a crucial detail that he might have missed the first time around, but in vain.

When he goes to return the folder, Mycroft Lestrade is not in his office. John is about to leave when he hears Anthea’s heels clipping down the hallway, and she rounds the corner a couple seconds later.

“Hi, er, I’m John. The new doctor.” John has seen the warden’s PA around Baker several times, but was never properly introduced, not even during his tour of the compound when he’d joined the staff.

Anthea doesn’t look up. “Yes. I know.”

“Er,” John begins, realizing that he doesn’t know what her last name is, “Anthea? Can I call you Anthea?”

The woman nods absently, eyes still fixed on her Blackberry screen.

“D’you – d’you know where the boss is? The warden? I need to return something to him,” John says, weakly, waving the file, which contents promptly spill out. “ _Bloody hell_.”

Anthea doesn’t offer to help, though John isn’t remotely surprised. He bends down to pick up the papers scattered on the floor, the woman temporarily distracted from her screen by the movement.

When he straightens up, John has fully caught Anthea’s attention; her eyes have widened fractionally.

“That’s Sherlock’s file,” she blurts, out of character.

John looks at her. “Bit obvious,” he says, sharply.

Anthea looks away from the Blackberry, shocking John. “What are you doing with that file?” She doesn’t sound absent now.

“Reading.”

“Why?” Anthea asks, almost urgent.

John takes a deep breath. “I was – am – interested.”

“Interested in Sherlock? Why?” she repeats.

John is mildly surprised to find that he doesn’t know. The man is – to use his word – intriguing, but why his case, of all the strange cases in Baker, especially attracts John, escapes him.

“I’m not exactly sure,” he admits. “Maybe because he was a detective, right up until the day he murdered two men.”

He doesn’t mention that his interest may be partly because tall, dark, and handsome is his type.

Anthea blinks. “You believe that it was murder, then?”

John hadn’t realized that he’d used the word. “I don’t know.”

Anthea keeps eye contact with John, unspeaking.

“All right, yes, I suppose that it is a possibility.”

“Go on,” she urges.

John shrugs. “I’ve visited Holmes twice so far. He seems to be a man of enormous self-control and I don’t believe that he could kill two people by accident, as he contends. The jury trial may have believed that he did it in self-defense, but I personally don’t agree.”

Anthea appears to deliberate for a moment, then she steps closer and taps the folder in John’s hands.

“Mr. Lestrade hadn’t informed me that you were looking into Sherlock’s case,” she says.

John assumes that this is unusual.

Not yet finished, Anthea continues. “He’s put me on very much the same task as you, actually.” She fishes out a key from her bag and unlocks the door to Mycroft’s office, nodding to John to step inside.

John follows her, interested.

After closing the door, the warden’s PA resumes. “This is all strictly confidential.”

John gets the distinct feeling that he’s stepped into an American spy movie, but he nods.

“Neither Mr. Lestrade nor his partner, the Detective Inspector, know exactly what happened on the sixth of December last year. I’ve been assigned to sort through a rather large amount of information – and misinformation, of which there is quite a bit. Mr. Lestrade wants this problem solved.” She pauses, looking uneasy, then starts up again.

“The folder you are holding is the primary Sherlock Holmes file, the one Mr. Lestrade is more willing to lend out to others, yourself included. There is a second file. It contains the more provocative, delicate material. I am willing to allow you access to this file under the conditions that you assist me in my task because, quite honestly, I’ve not made very much progress. 

“I am placing a good deal of trust in you, Doctor. I need an answer, now,” she finishes.

John is stunned, as much at the length of unprompted speech as the content of Anthea’s words.

He knows what his answer will be, though. There really is no question.

~-~ 

The file _Sherlock Holmes B_ is not kept at Baker, John learns.

He follows Anthea, her attention now turned back to her Blackberry, fingers flying rapidly. The woman walks toward the meeting rooms, in the building at the front of the compound.

Mycroft and Gregory Lestrade are in the last room, at the end of the hallway, speaking in low voices. There are three others sitting at the long table in the center of the room, the guard Donovan, a mostly nondescript man with a sour face, and a third man, whose face and voice immediately start to rub John wrong.

The warden turns when Anthea and John approach. Lestrade and John nod to each other while Mycroft quietly discusses something with his PA.

Lestrade does introductions. The unknown couple at the table are also from the Yard. The first man is Detective Inspector Dimmock, who headed the last case Holmes had worked on. The second man is introduced as Anderson, a forensics expert.

John learns that Salvador Donovan, the guard, also used to work in Lestrade’s and Anderson’s division, holding the rank of Sergeant, but chose to leave after the Holmes case. This is in part because he does not trust Holmes to quietly remain in prison. Donovan sees Holmes’ crime as partly his fault, for not voicing his doubts about the man until it was too late.

The group has also been discussing Holmes’ case, John learns, as part of Mycroft’s and Anthea’s inquiries, but though theories abound, most of which place Holmes in a guilty light – or guiltier than he already is –, there is little to no proof supporting any of them, due to lack of details pertaining to the night of the sixth of December.

In light of this, while Anthea is still talking to Mycroft, John wonders if any of the group present has actually talked to Holmes since he’d been incarcerated.

He says this aloud, but is met with dismissal and derision from most of the men, excepting Greg Lestrade, who sits quietly and does not voice an opinion.

“Does it matter?” Donovan asks. “He’s just a lunatic and he’ll always let you down and we’d be wasting our time to even try to communicate with that freak.” Donovan is particularly passionate in his views of Holmes as a cold-blooded killer, though there seems to be something more personal behind his remarks.

Though John doesn’t particularly believe in Holmes’ innocence, he feels the need to defend the man, and the table spends the next five minutes in frigid silence.

Luckily, Mycroft finishes talking to Anthea, and John is asked to join them, moving to the hallway. The other

The warden cuts straight to the point.

“Do you think that you can get through to my brother, Doctor Watson?”

“I don’t know, sir,” John says honestly. “I visited him yesterday and he seemed open enough, but he sort of shut down after a few minutes and I think he’s avoiding another encounter.”

“But you were able to make him talk,” the warden says sharply.

John frowns. “I didn’t _make_ him do anything. He volunteered the information. Sir.”

Mycroft waves his hand, dismissive. “But he gave you _something_ at all, which is more than anyone else has been able to do thus far. Apparently, Doctor, you are unusual in some way to Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps you are even _interesting_.” He seems surprised that John had managed to do what he hadn’t. John supposes that arrogance runs in the family.

“And that’s important?” John asks, sounding more irritated than he’d realized.

“My brother lives on interesting, Doctor. If you prove a source of interest for my brother, we can exploit that.”

“All right, yes.” John says. He addresses Anthea. “Sorry, why was I brought here?”

She nods towards Mycroft, then lowers her head again to look at her Blackberry.

“I keep Sherlock’s secondary file either on my person or at home, Doctor, and it is currently in the latter location,” the warden says. “I will emphasize the delicacy of this project. Much of the information inside that file could be quite detrimental to my career as well as Sherlock’s, little of it as may remain, in the wrong hands. I do not believe that I need say anything else. You have an excellent reputation as an honest man, Doctor. Please do not change that.

“I will bring the file to Baker tomorrow. This entire project will be conducted here. Do not attempt to take the file or any of its contents anywhere else. You will work with Anthea, when you have the time, but I expect you to continue to work your official job with all the effort that you have employed thus far. I will provide you with a separate office in which you will do all research pertaining to Sherlock. 

“While I am sure that you will be tempted to do research of your own, outside of Baker, I would strongly suggest that you do not. I believe that there are others currently very interested in Sherlock, and not in concern. I would prefer that as few of my own people come under these particular others’ attentions. This is for everyone’s safety.”

John interrupts. “These ‘others’, I’m assuming that they’re the ‘wrong hands’ for the file to fall into? Would you mind being a bit more specific? A name, anything?”

Mycroft sighs. “There is little that even I can say for sure, but there is one name, currently, that I am certain is of importance. Sherlock had come across the name as well, I believe, several times, before – before the incident.”

“And?”

“You may be placed into more danger simply by knowing the name. You must understand that this is not a game, Doctor-“

“Damn right it’s not a game. I know what danger is, sir, I was in the army for six years. I fought in a _war_ , I was _shot_. You want me to get something out of your brother, but I need to know what questions to ask. I need somewhere to begin, and a name would really be appreciated.” John exhales impatiently. “Sir.”

The warden is taken aback, but after a moment’s hesitation, he nods.

“The name is James, or Jim. Surname: Moriarty.”


	5. Chapter 5

It is night, and John in running through the streets of London at the side of the most brilliant man he has ever met. He turns a corner of an unfamiliar street, stumbles, and laughs a little hysterically as the madman grasps his arm and pulls him along, and together they chase shadows and follow invisible footprints while the busy streets of London stand still.

He vaguely remembers that first time he’d visited the city, when he’d still been living in Sussex, with his family. He’d been ten, or maybe twelve, and John had been in awe of the lights and the smells and the _sounds_ , so enormous and bright to his youthful self… But that pales in comparison to this, this night London, racing with Sherlock Holmes through the moonlit alleyways, seeing the world from behind the scenes.

It’s a rush, it’s the fantastic adrenaline rush that’s always made John giddy and made him feel _whole_ …

And then John wakes up and the real world is just so usual. So mundane.

He’d thought that, after the war, mundane would be good. But it isn’t, not really, and he hasn’t felt truly alive since Afghanistan, or at least not until he’d met Sherlock Holmes.

John wonders is something is wrong with him, to harbor such doubts about a man and yet be so fascinated by him, to want his company.

He realizes that this is the first time he’s dreamt, for months, about something other than Afghanistan. It’d been so _vivid_ , like a memory, maybe, but so far away at the same time. John wonders if, in another lifetime, even another universe, he could have met Sherlock Holmes in a different setting, maybe at a café, maybe at St. Bart’s, even, or maybe they’d been introduced by a mutual acquaintance.

They might have been friends.

John wonders if this is still possible, given the circumstances, and concludes that he doesn’t know.

Outside the window of John’s bare little flat is a full moon, maybe the same moon that John had seen glimpses of between the high buildings of the City of London.

He goes back to sleep eventually, shadowed by the ghosts of what might have been.

~-~ 

At five in the morning , John is at Baker.

Mycroft brings the file _Sherlock Holmes B_ , delivering it with another stern warning not to remove it from the compound and leaving John to his own devices, having arrived early again.

John, eager to dive into the contents of the file, finds an empty conference room, but before he can settle in, Anthea arrives with news that an office has been cleared for him.

The room is several doors down from the warden’s own office, around a corner but in easy access. Sparsely furnished with a wide desk, rolling chair, and one empty file cabinet, the office is only slightly larger than Baker’s prison cells, though cheerier given the large window with a first-storey view of the prison’s central courtyard.

John opens the shades all the way, though there is little light coming in from the outside at this hour, and sits down in the chair, attempting to get comfortable. He finally opens the file, a thick folder, filled to bursting, bound with several rubber bands in order to keep the contents from escaping the confines of the buff paper.

He spreads said contents across the dark, polished desk.

The first documents that catch his eye are several color photos, clipped together, of two men. The first is an elderly man, rather plain and with a mild face. By contrast, the second man is a rough-looking younger man, a scruffy beard covering his chin and sharp, arrogant eyes set closely together. John remembers the same photos from the first Sherlock Holmes file he’d consulted.

John picks up the stack of photos. Under the faces are captions, _Jefferson Hope_ and _John “Jack” McGinty_ , respectively. The two victims of the Holmes homicide.

Underneath are more photos, also in bold color.

Illuminated artificially by police lights are two bodies, lying prostrate on a filthy floor. On closer inspection, John can see that these are also Hope and McGinty, the latter’s face heavily bruised, the former not as much. Hope, a London cabbie, as John recalls, has dark red lines across his forearms.

Several more shots, zoomed in to specific areas of the men’s bodies, show the full extent of their injuries. An official-looking stamp on the bottom left-hand corner of each reads “Security Service A-level clearance only”, with a familiar but slightly different signature, _Mycroft Holmes_. John wonders who Mycroft really is to have the kind of power to control information in this way. He doesn’t suppose that most prison wardens have A-level MI5 clearance, much less are able to authorize it.

John remembers this for later and skips past the rest of the injury photos and reports, to go directly to the information directly pertaining to Holmes, as an individual. He needs to know more about the man.

The bio in this file is, if possible, more detailed than the one in the earlier file. The thing that most interests John, however, is the criminal record. Apparently Holmes has done quite a bit more than being caught with stimulants.

Going in chronological order, it appears that Holmes has assaulted a police officer under the influence of drugs, been suspected in a case of domestic terrorism (though the charges were dropped after it was found that the investigator was sadly misinformed and Sherlock was barely alive during the incident, having been in the hospital for a drug overdose), broken into a bank – twice –, and committed several acts of arson, to name a few. All during a time span of about two years, approximately a decade ago.

And suddenly, seven years before the present, the crime spree stopped, and Holmes disappeared from the police record until two years later, when he began consulting with the Yard, Lestrade’s division specifically.

Oddly enough, Sherlock Holmes has never been in prison before this last case, nor has he intentionally harmed another human being.

But even stranger are certain unusual details of each of these exploits. The bank robbery, for example. It took place at the most secure bank in London. After Holmes had hacked the security cameras to loop and picked the external door lock, he had proceeded to deduce from the minutiae of the bank executive’s office the security codes that allowed him to unlock the door to the main vault and then promptly set off the alarms and leave, having taken not a quid.

Apparently, the bank’s interior cameras were not tampered with, allowing Holmes’ actions to be observed. Subsequently, the bank decided to improve its security systems, and it did, exponentially. Holmes then promptly broke in again, in less time than the first, and composed a letter to the bank’s executives, compiling in it a list of faults with security and would they please try to improve on them so that certain well-to-do citizens would not have to change banks.

Holmes was never even charged for breaking and entering. John tells himself to ask Mycroft how far his authority really goes. Even the official police record from the earlier Holmes file hadn’t contained any hint of these crimes, and John suspects that if he checked the bank’s records, he wouldn’t find anything either. He wonders if the owners would tell him anything.

During the two-year gap and the subsequent years, Mycroft has drawn up a list of activities that show that Holmes may not have been so inactive as one would suspect at first glance.

Mycroft’s list is a list of associations, suspicions. Crimes or unusual events that the warden believes may have been caused or perpetrated by his little brother.

Among them: illegal genetic and chemical experimentation, several additional cases of arson, kidnappings (all returned), smuggling, destruction of private property and property of the Crown.

Not present is any mention of previous homicides. Apparently Holmes, despite appearances, did not believe in the taking of another’s life.

Until now, and John wonders what has changed.

~-~ 

The next section is more cheerful, kept in this file not for its potentially volatile nature, but for its personal nature.

This is the early record of Sherlock Holmes.

There is a photo of the Holmes siblings, the younger, a sleeping toddler, being carried by the elder, a beaming smile on his face.

There is a picture of a young Holmes, maybe six years old, wearing a pirate hat and a large false mustache, attempting to scowl ferociously and failing miserably.

There is another photo of the siblings, taken perhaps three or four years later. Sherlock has grown about a foot and the two have their arms around each other’s shoulders.

A fourth photograph pictures just the younger Holmes again, around the age of early secondary school, smiling politely at the camera, but John can already see the manner of the present-day Holmes starting to take root in the way he dresses, the way he stands. The way his eyes already seem more remote.

There is a gap, as John checks the dates handwritten on the backs of the photos, of several years. He assumes that Sherlock had broken contact with his brother, or perhaps vice versa, but there appears to be no photographic record of Holmes from his entrance into secondary school until graduation from uni, at which point there is one picture of him wearing Oxford robes and wearing an expression that says he would rather be anywhere else.

However, John soon discovers that there is indeed a series of photos from Holmes’ days, during the gap. These photos are not personal, however. In the corner of each of these more grainy photographs is a time stamp and a separate number preceded by the letters “CCTV”.

John wonders how on earth Mycroft has gotten ahold of security camera footage, and adds it to the list of things to ask the warden about.

~-~ 

Under a blank cardstock divider, in another pile, is a resumé, also compiled by Mycroft.

After three years at Oxford, Holmes had left the school after receiving his bachelor’s degree in chemistry, which John finds surprisingly unambitious.

Directly afterwards, John is astonished to learn that Holmes had taken up a career in drama and had been a theatre actor for five years, at which point he dropped out of the scene and, apparently, jumped between jobs for another half decade. These occupations are extremely varied and include the most unexpected things, from bartending to mechanics.

Most of the time, however, Holmes appears to have been unemployed.

~-~ 

John strikes gold in the next section of the file, which has been, so far, sitting at the top right-hand corner of John’s desk.

Typed neatly in tiny font size is a detailed list of events, dated from the day before the night of the Holmes homicide.

Everything that Mycroft knew of his brother’s whereabouts and activities, starting at that date, is here.

_5 December_

_0602 Sherlock leaves 221B, cab_

John stops reading and realizes that he hadn’t even known what Holmes’ address had been before. He briefly wonders if putting his brother in Cell 22-1-B had been Mycroft’s idea of a joke.

_0619 Sherlock exits cab at New Scotland Yard, enters_  
0625 Sherlock leaves NSY, cab  
0641 Sherlock exits cab at 221B  
0711 Ryan Wiggins arrives at 221B on foot, enters  
0715 R. Wiggins leaves 221B on foot  
0933 Marie Hudson leaves 221B on foot  
1013 M. Hudson arrives at 221B on foot, enters  
1020 M. Hudson leaves 221B on foot  
1021 M. Hudson arrives at 220A on foot, enters  
1031 M. Hudson + Miranda Turner leave 220A, on foot  
1258 Sherlock leaves 221B on foot  
1307 Gregory Lestrade arrives at 221B, cab  
1308 G. Lestrade leaves 221B, same cab  
1445 Sherlock arrives at London Taxi Company yard on foot, enters  
1453 Sherlock outside LTC yard 

John stops again. Mycroft may be an impeccable record-keeper, but sometimes there is a such thing as too much. In this case, John is feeling a slight headache, not to mention that he honestly cannot see the pertinence to the case in knowing where Holmes’ landlady was at a specific time. He takes a deep breath, checks his watch. It’s been about an hour since he arrived and the grey sky outside is starting to lighten, though the sun won’t rise for another half hour or so.

John still has just under an hour left until he has to take over for Doctor Sun.

He resigns himself to continue, knowing that any information at all on this case can help.

 _1454 Sherlock calls_ [unknown individual] _on mobile_  
1500 [unknown Caucasian male] _exits cab at LTC yard  
1501 Sherlock +_ [unknown Caucasian male] _leave LTC yard, cab_

John pauses and then, on a hunch, flips through the rest of the stapled stack, which is surely too thick for it to only contain this list, even taking into consideration Mycroft’s precision and thoroughness.

His feeling is correct: the second part of the stack includes surveillance photos, similar to the earlier ones taken of Holmes at his secondary school and the Oxford campus. The top photo is from 6:19 a.m., 5 December. It shows the present-day Holmes leaving his flat, head down.

John flips to the section he’s looking for. All taken from the same CCTV, these shots show Holmes, wearing a trench coat and talking to another man, hands in pockets. This individual is much shorter than Holmes, cropped light brown hair and the back of a pale neck the only identifying features, as the man has his back directly facing the camera for several shots. Two more show Holmes and the stranger entering a cab, and this time the man is turned enough to the side to allow a blurry profile to be seen. The following photos only show the cab, and John returns to the report.

 _1544 Sherlock +_ [unknown Caucasian male] _exit cab at Phoenix Moon Restaurant,_ [unknown Caucasian male] _enters_  
1611 Sherlock arrives at 221B on foot, enters

The entire rest of the day following Holmes’ re-entrance to his home is empty of any action on his part, though Mrs. Hudson, the landlady, spent several hours with Mrs. Turner, her neighbor. Holmes, however, remained inside his flat after four o’clock.

Luckily, the record of the next day, the sixth, is much more helpful.

After several hours of comings and goings, the record approaches the night of the sixth and Mycroft’s notes become more detailed as pertaining to the actions of his brother. Much of this information appears to have been extrapolated from interviews with the Yarders, Marie Hudson, and various others. John assumes that the rest has been garnered from CCTV footage, given that the document has practically become a play-by-play report of the day.

_1409 Sherlock meets with DI Tyler Dimmock at NSY, arranges meeting at 2100, No. 22 Lauriston Gardens_  
1413 Sherlock leaves NSY, cab  
1435 Sherlock exits cab at 221B 

And then, later,

 _2049 Sherlock leaves 221B, cab_  
2056 Sherlock exits cab at Lauriston Gdns., enters Angelo’s, orders 1 glass of water, watches No. 22 for T. Dimmock  
2111 Sherlock leaves Angelo’s, cab  
2138 Sherlock exits cab at Phoenix Moon Restaurant  
2140 [unknown Caucasian male] _leaves restaurant, discusses_ [?] _with Sherlock_  
2141 Sherlock + [unknown Caucasian male] _enter restaurant_  
2155 cab (obscured number plate) arrives at restaurant, Sherlock exits restaurant  
2156 cab pulls away from restaurant, no passengers visible, Sherlock initiates pursuit

John skims through the subsequent series of turns and stops that the cab and Sherlock made and starts reading again when he sees something that doesn’t look like driving directions.

 _2223_ [unknown Caucasian male 2] _+_ [unknown Caucasian male 3] _exit cab, enter Roland-Kerr Further Education College_

Again, John checks the security camera photos. The two men shown during this time frame are as pixelated as the others, one elderly and short, the other tall with dark, disorderly hair. He compares these photos to the facial shots of Hope and McGinty and concludes that these may be the same men.

_2225 Sherlock arrives at Roland-Kerr, on foot  
2226 CCTVs in 80-meter radius from Sherlock cut out_

_Right here, this is crucial_. John knows it. He separates the stack of surveillance photos from the main packet.

Past grainy photos of Sherlock on the street in front of two plain grey buildings, the last at ten twenty-six at night, there is nothing until the next morning. John feels a surge of excitement at this revelation.

Mycroft may have recorded these events, but he hasn’t received any information from his brother, John knows that much. John, on the other hand, seems to have already made more progress with Holmes than anyone else, and he doesn’t intend to stop where he is now.

A distant clock is chiming the hour seven and John will be late to work again, but he feels on the brink of some brilliant new discovery and he finally knows where to begin when he next speaks with the convict in Cell 22-1-B.

~-~ 

That next time, however, won’t come for a couple days.

After John returns _Sherlock Holmes B_ to the warden, the day in the Baker medical ward is busy. An overnight escape attempt has led to severe injuries on the part of two inmates and a guard.

John apologizes vigorously, shocked away from the euphoria of a couple minutes ago, and gets to work.

~-~ 

Lunch will not come until much later than usual, by which time John will find it difficult to visit Holmes, and the next day, he discovers that the convict has been moved to the solitary confinement unit for fighting with another inmate, newly arrived, one Sebastian Moran.

In the meantime, John returns to the file. Four hours after the camera blackout at 2226, at two in the morning, Mycroft received a call from his brother, requesting that he meet him at the Roland-Kerr Further Education College. Mycroft was only happy to oblige, hoping that Sherlock would have an explanation for the CCTV failure, but when he arrived, his brother was not present. It was then that the two bodies were found.

John finds Mycroft’s recording of his phone conversation with Holmes. Apparently this is normal for the warden, though John makes a note of it not to ring Mycroft with sensitive information.

John slips the disk into his office’s computer and presses Play.

 _“Hello, Mycroft, so very sorry to be bothering you at this time but I’ve got something that you might find of interest.”_ Sherlock Holmes’ dry drawl crackles through the speakers, bursts of static interfering occasionally with the quality of the sound. 

Mycroft’s voice enters. _“Sherlock. I do hope that this is important.”_ His voice barely reveals the lateness – or earliness – of the hour, and only on the first couple words.

 _“Roland-Kerr Further Education College. Come at once if convenient_.” Holmes’ voice has dropped its acid quality.

A short pause, and then, “ _I’ll be there in fifteen minutes_.”

“ _Thank you. I’ll meet you on the third storey, hall B, room… oh, forget it, just track my mobile, I know you do it anyway_."

" _On my way, dear brother. Please don't do anything stupid_." A short click, and the recording ends.

After ejecting the disk, John sits back in the chair in thought. The conversation is the last thing from the night of the sixth that Mycroft has in the file, other than CCTV stills of the building from much later, after Mycroft had reached the College, but these show no outside activity until the Met are at the site, which is unhelpful.

John closes up for the day with a heavy heart.

~-~

Sherlock is infinitely glad when he is moved to solitary.

Most criminals need loud noises, the companionship of fellow troublemakers, an audience to boast of past misdeeds to, but Sherlock needs to be away from all that, the miscreants in B Block. He won’t be lumped in with them.

And he wants away from Sebastian Moran, at least for the time being.

Sebastian Moran has occupied an undue percentage of Sherlock’s thoughts recently. He bothers him, quite honestly. There is something that seems to be missing from the man, Sherlock decides. If he were to be sentimental about it, he’d say the criminal lacked a soul, though what exactly that means in Sebastian Moran is unclear.

The day after the doctor had visited him, Lestrade had come in again, this time as a friend, he said, but after nearly half an hour of a one-sided conversation, the DI had left.

And the day after that: Sebastian Moran, convicted rapist from Cardiff.

Sexual assault has always disgusted Sherlock. He sees it as the lowest kind of theft, as well as irrational and impulsive. Sebastian Moran isn’t the first rapist to come to Baker, not nearly, but he’s one of the few with several offenses of varying types, including murder in the first degree. The only reason why he’d even been out of prison after a record like that was that he’d committed half of the crimes in California. Sherlock spares a bit of disgust for the American judicial system.

Sebastian Moran, however, is also a name he’s heard associated with Moriarty, quite commonly, in fact. Usually the man tasked with the large-scale, most crucial operations within Moriarty’s greater scheme of things. Moran is Moriarty’s top gun, the public’s criminal, so that the mastermind himself goes unnoticed.

And that both the consulting criminal and his right-hand man are now at Baker can only mean one thing for Sherlock.

He’d learned that, on the seventh of December, a man who’d given his name as Jim Mo had taken on the suddenly vacated position of Baker Prison’s B Block security chief. It surprised Sherlock that he’d taken such a transparent pseudonym, but perhaps he hadn’t intended to fool anyone, or at least, anyone who knew the name James Moriarty.

He’d been waiting, instead, for the next move. Sherlock’s move.

Sherlock hadn’t originally been meant to carry out his sentence at HMP Baker. He’d been assigned elsewhere, but he’d asked Mycroft to pull some strings and his brother, reluctantly, had, though he’d not known exactly why.

It had been, most likely, one of his only chances to get near Moriarty, and the criminal had known it.

So Sherlock had deliberately taken the bait, agreed to play the game.

~-~

A few days later, on Sunday, an inmate commits suicide and Molly Hooper is tasked with performing the postmortem.

“John! John, you should see this, John — oh, sorry!” Molly hurriedly steps back from John’s desk as he groggily raises his head.

He lurches awake. “Molly?” and then, wide-eyed, “What time is it?”

“Your shift started about half an hour ago. Erm, how long have you been here?”

John groans, checks his watch. “Shit. Sorry, Molly, I was reading these last night,” he gestured at the document-strewn desk, “and I must’ve drifted off at some point. I hadn’t realized how late it was.” He apologizes again, then packs the folder up, wondering why Mycroft hadn’t noticed that he was still in, with the file open and the door unlocked.

When he checks in with the warden, apologizing once again, it turns out that he’d been busy, talking to Sherlock apparently, and Anthea had watched the security cameras all night, not wanting to disturb John nor leave him and the file unwatched.

Back in the prison hospital, Molly has something to show John.

“It’s called _pauper torrentum_ among poisons experts. Its common name is Saturn spider, but it’s not actually very common and most people don’t know about it. I wouldn’t even’ve checked for something like this, but Gregory Lestrade — that Detective Inspector who’s, er, with the warden — asked specifically about the poison, and a few others. I — I don’t even know how he knew, but it was there,” she completes breathlessly.

John looks blankly at Molly. “It was where?”

She points at the body currently on the table, covered by a white sheet. “Avery Harrison, forty-two years. B Block inmate, cell twenty-six. Found it in along the lining of his windpipe and once I knew where to look, it was pretty much _everywhere_ in the respiratory system. The poison kills through inhalation,” she paused to take a breath, “and it’s pretty much undetectable through standard tests.”

They both lean over the table as Molly uncovers the body. Harrison looks virtually untouched. He could be mistaken for asleep, John thinks, and he isn’t sure if he’s glad or disappointed because of this. His experiences in Afghanistan gave him further insight into death and destruction than most people ever want to have. But when he misses the war, he misses all parts of it, violent deaths perhaps included, however gruesome that may be.

“So it’s undetectable. In that case how did you find it?”

Molly moves to the other side of the table. She points at the edges of Harrison’s mouth, saying, “That B Block inmate I was telling you about, last week. Sherlock Holmes, I remember his name now. Turns out he used to be a detective, of all things, and Greg Lestrade worked with him. He took about five seconds with the photos of the body, particularly the mouth, and recommended the procedure to test for the poison.”

John is taken aback. “Did he explain how he could tell what it was?”

She looks across the table at her fellow doctor. “Funny enough, he refused to say.”

~-~

Sherlock, sitting on the cold ground in solitary confinement, and retreated into his mind palace, is alerted to the presence of another when he registers soft footsteps outside the cell. The pattern is unfamiliar, but he can guess at who it is. He keeps his head down.

“Sherlock Holmes. I can’t say how _fantastic_ it is to finally meet you.” An Irish brogue interrupts the quiet.

Sherlock remains silent.

“But then again, we’ve been seeing each other about, haven’t we? Tiptoeing around the edges of each other’s exploits, hmm? I know I have.” Another pause.

“You haven’t tried to come see me, Sherlock. I’m a bit disappointed in you, actually, but I suppose I can be patient… I do hope that you aren’t waiting for an invitation.

“I’ve been so _bored_ , Sherlock, and I know you’ve been the same. Stuck in this _miserable_ cluttered place, cluttered with all the stupid, _stupid_ people. Nobody comes to you with cases, now, do they? Maybe old Greg Lestrade, every few months? Are you regretting making the choice you did?”

Finally lifting his head, Sherlock locks eyes with Moriarty.

“You’re an amateur, do you know that? Inexperienced… I’d say you’ve only been seriously at it for a few years, five at the most, and you’ve been enjoying yourself, thoroughly, but not any longer: you’re not getting the kinds of results you think you want; you’re still not even sure what you’ll do with what you have. You want to be remembered, yes, but I think that within half a decade, you’ll fade away. You won’t last. You’re just _desperate_ for attention.” Sherlock spits out.

James Moriarty is barely shaken. “I’m not the one inside a cell. You, on the other hand, are stuck here for fifteen years. Not too pleasant, I’d imagine.”

“ _I put myself here._ ”

The consulting criminal smiles broadly. “But will you be able to get yourself out?”

~-~

Four days later, Sherlock is released from solitary. He hasn’t spoken with Moriarty since Sunday, but he asks a guard to pass on a handwritten note to Jim Mo.

The note, scrawled on a half-sheet of white paper, contains only two words. Moriarty smiles when he reads it.

It reads, _Challenge accepted_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait, hope you enjoyed.


	6. Chapter 6

They pull Sherlock Holmes in for questioning the day he is returned to Cell Block B. John and Molly Hooper do, that is, because they’ve been waiting four days to learn how exactly he’d known what to look for on Harrison’s body.

The room, Conference Room 1, is coldly quiet when John unlocks the door and ushers Molly and Holmes through.

This time, John gets a good look at the room. The conference rooms at Baker are stiffly simple, all laid out identically with one rectangular table bolted down in the center of the room. The chairs around the table are of the same material and mood of the ones in the prison cells, and the overall air is chilly. The labelling of “conference room” is simply that: a labelling. After all, nobody holds conferences or meetings of any kind in a prison complex.

Holmes is quiet the whole way, footsteps silent, and John is slightly uneasy when he dismisses the guard who’d accompanied them from B Block.

It’s been over a week since his last – was it really only the second one? – meeting with Holmes, and John doesn’t know what to expect any more than he had that first night.

The solution to the current question, however, is simple, as Holmes explains curtly.

“Last October, there was a case, in London, a string of what looked like suicides. I worked with Detective Inspector Lestrade; he can verify this. It turned out that they were actually murders, using an obscure poison, the one ingested also by Avery Harrison. I saw the signs on his body, quite obvious actually.” He falls silent and stares at the opposite wall sullenly.

They’re seated around the table at the end closest to the entrance, John and Molly with their backs to the door and Holmes on the left-hand side, next to the corner. He sprawls languidly in the chair, an improbable feat in itself, pleased to be out of his cell but not so happy to have to talk.

John leans forward. “And how did you find it the first time?”

Holmes blinks slowly. “Careful observation, Doctor, and careful analysis.”

A short pause as John and Molly wonder what to say next.

“Are we done here?” Holmes asks shortly.

Exchanging a glance with his fellow doctor, John nods slowly, resignedly. He’d like to spend a little more time talking with the former consulting detective, but he supposes that with Molly in the room, he’d better find another time.

“Yes, Holmes. That’s all.”

They consider the discussion closed, for the time being.

~-~ 

John finally finds time for his third real meeting with Holmes the next day. He’s left off on the _Sherlock Holmes B_ file for a few days, having made no more real progress and, besides, his eyes have been getting a bit strained after hours of staring at tiny print, courtesy of Mycroft Lestrade.

He walks in after his afternoon shift ends, with a nod to the guard at the door.

Holmes is sitting on his bed tonight, staring at the wall opposite, eyelids lowered and flickering.

John says Holmes’ name, softly. No response.

He repeats himself, a little louder, but the convict shows no signs of acknowledgement.

After a moment of thought, John goes to the outer office of the cell block and asks for a stool. Outside Cell 22-1-B, he sits down to wait.

It is nearly half an hour before Holmes stirs from his position and John has nearly given up on receiving a response from Holmes. He’s been sneaking short glances at the convict every few minutes, but when he finally moves, John is startled.

Holmes stands and moves fluidly to the barred door in one motion, looking down on John, who stands quickly.

Neither speaks for a couple minutes, re-sizing each other up, finally having the time to do so for the first time in more than a week.

Unsurprisingly, John is the one to break the silence.

“So, er, hello. Again.” He immediately recognizes this as the least coherent greeting in the history of communication.

Holmes’ mouth twitches slightly. He breathes slowly, staring deep into John’s eyes with that x-ray-like gaze of his. John counts four long inhales from the man opposite him before he speaks.

“Doctor.”

Internally, John sighs. He and Holmes appear to be back where they’d been at the beginning of their admittedly very short relationship. He suddenly becomes very aware of the presence of the dozens of other convicts in the cells lining the hall. He wants to say something clever, to remedy his early blurt, but he doesn’t want to talk in front of the criminals currently listening in.

“Look, d’you think the warden would let me take you to one of the conference rooms? Just to talk?”

The convict’s face twists. “I’m sure he would.”

John belatedly realizes that he’d asked the wrong question. He feels like a total idiot, but he manages to reply, “S-sorry. Er, would you mind coming with me? Just for a chat?”

“Whatever do you want to have a… _chat_ with _me_ about?” Holmes asks, the disdain in his voice dripping thickly. He pauses, and John wonders if he might as well leave now, but Holmes continues, “I’ll come. I could use an intelligent discussion, if you can possibly offer that. Go get your permission.” He throws the last word away like a bit of rubbish, and John can certainly understand what the warden’d meant when he’d said that he and Sherlock had a difficult relationship.

John knows a peace offering when he sees one, and takes the opportunity that Holmes had handed him.

~-~ 

The atmosphere is still tense at first, conversation stilted. This time, however, John takes a different approach. He decides to actually get to know the inmate. He knows he isn’t fooling Holmes into thinking that companionship is all he wants, but it helps ease the way for the more difficult questions. Holmes appears more than willing to acquiesce.

He learns that Holmes is actually younger than him by several years. He learns that the man had left home at the age of fourteen, and started at uni before he’d turned sixteen.

He learns that Holmes had been expelled two years later after setting fire to a lab, by accident, he claims, and for fighting with a couple of upperclassmen who’d insulted his habits. Holmes doesn’t specify exactly which habits those are.

He learns also that, after expulsion, Holmes had soon become a victim of substance abuse, had lived nearly on the streets, and had been pulled off of them by his brother. Mycroft had pushed him through rehab, not once, but twice. The younger Holmes says now that he’s been totally clean for the last couple years.

John doesn’t let on that he’s read this all already in Holmes’ file, but after several minutes Holmes catches on by himself.

“Mycroft’s given you my file, hasn’t he?” Holmes asks suspiciously.

John attempts to redirect the question. “All the inmate files are open for viewing by Baker employees.”

The inmate in question narrows his eyes, and John can tell by the look in his eyes that he knows what John’s been doing.

“You’ve been far too accepting of everything I’ve told you. Not enough reaction, though I’m sure you tried,” the man says, cynically. “The other file. The one he hasn’t told me about but that I know he has. The big one. He’s been collecting that file since before he was of age. It’d be difficult to miss something like that.”

John gives in. “All right, I’ve seen it. A bit.”

The narrowing of the eyes turns into something akin to a glare. “What were you doing going through that file?”

The doctor hesitates, wondering how to answer. He’s saved by Holmes, who answers his own question, albeit too correctly for John’s comfort.

“Of course, you’re still wondering about December. You know, Doctor, perhaps you should consider that some things don’t want to be found. You’d be better off wasting your time on something else… no, wait,” Holmes paused, scrutinizing John’s face, “No, you’ve been put up to this by Mycroft, at least a little. What does he think you’ll find that he hasn’t been able to thus far? Or is it that the file that he’s compiled is so full of things he’s already seen that a fresh look will give him something he’s missed?”

Holmes stops again, then revises his earlier statements. “No, wait, _he’s_ not the one who’s really interested, or he’d have a team of agents working in a room under threat of death. Rather, we have you, a relative stranger. You’re actually curious.” The inmate almost sounds surprised. “Mycroft is _concerned_ about the issue, of course, but it doesn’t land near the top of his priority list, which, understandably, contains much more important things to worry about.

“You, on the other hand, the single army doctor, don’t have too much to occupy your time outside of work, which has admittedly been picking up recently, so you find yourself a hobby. Or rather, it’d started as a hobby, but now it’s quite something else, isn’t it? How long has it been? A week of getting up early to come read my file, then late nights falling asleep at your desk in the office Mycroft has so conveniently provided you, maybe one of the ones in the admin building facing the quad?” Holmes finishes breathlessly.

John is speechless.

He’s already experienced firsthand the brunt of Holmes’ intellect before, but it doesn’t lessen the effect now. He starts to ask how he’d known. The inmate preempts him.

“The bit about Mycroft was obvious, it’s in his nature. I knew you were curious after our first couple of conversations, but it’s escalated beyond that now. The way you stand, for instance, is noticeably more hunched than it was before, indicating long hours at a desk. Now, doctoring isn’t a desk job, and Baker doesn’t give its doctors offices large enough to sufficiently examine all the information that I’m sure is in that file of Mycroft’s, and they certainly don’t have windows, so Mycroft’s given–“ he shushes John when he sputters, “Windows!?”

“–given you full permission to examine the file and has actually encouraged it by giving you a separate office, which has a window facing the quad, letting in bright sunlight during the morning when the skies are clear – coincidentally quite like the weather we’ve been having recently – and you’ve had to squint at the documents and computer screen. Telltale wrinkles around the eyes.

“Your eyes are also reddened, likely dry after staying up late working at that file, certainly not from anything else, as you’ve already admitted to being single and not being one for drinking either.

“You fell asleep at the desk last night, probably not for the first time. The clothes you’re wearing are mussed because you wore them yesterday and couldn’t get home in time to change for work this morning. That kind of dedication, Doctor, isn’t indicative of simply a hobby, but powerful interest, bordering on obsession.” Holmes’ conclusion is magnificent.

John can only state this in awe, and Holmes cracks a small smile. John has to concur, “I suppose it has been getting a little out of hand. Maybe obsessive, as you say.”

The convict nods. “I understand, Doctor, but I’m not ready to talk about what happened last winter, not right now.”

John nods back. Even this is progress. They talk a little longer, but soon Holmes asks to return to his cell. The doctor checks his watch. It’s been longer than he’d thought, and he agrees with the convict.

~-~ 

Tonight, John decides to skip his study of the _Sherlock Holmes B_ file. Partly because Holmes has reminded him of how little sleep he’s been getting, and he doesn’t think that, at this point, extra hours of study will really help. Holmes is a primary source, and therefore much more reliable than even Mycroft’s extensive research.

Work in the infirmary slows down gradually. John and Molly spend more time chatting, and he gets to know her better as well.

“So how was your first date with Jim?” John asks her.

They’re sitting on a couple of spare cots right now, Molly completing the latest med ward release form. There is currently only one inmate in the B Block wing, a man who’d twisted his ankle playing basketball during rec time. Stamford, on the other hand, has his hands full. He and his fellow doctor, Sara Castillo, are occupied with a flu epidemic. But B ward is quiet.

Molly blushes and shows a little smile. “It was nice,” she admits. “Very nice. He’s so sweet and considerate. He brought me flowers.”

John grins back. “So it went well! And you had fun?”

“Oh yes, yes, we went and saw a film, that new one with the mysterious murders and the split-personality killer, it was quite scary but Jim held me the whole time and it was good fun. And – and we kissed,” she faltered, “but maybe you didn’t really want to know that.”

“No, Molly, that’s wonderful. I’m glad you and Jim finally got together. I can’t say I know him very well but I’m glad he makes you this happy. You must be good for each other.”

Molly smiles. “You really think so?”

John nods.

They sit in companionable silence for a couple more minutes. Molly breaks the silence. “So, er, John, do you have a girlfriend?”

He hesitates before answering, “Not now, no. I just haven’t found too much time recently to build on my social life, though Lestrade’s invited me out for a drink a couple of times. The DI, not the warden.”

“I thought you didn’t drink,” Molly says curiously.

“I don’t. But I can’t turn Lestrade down every time. It isn’t drinking exactly that bothers me, Molly, but when it gets excessive…”

She nods in understanding. “I get it. You know, maybe you should introduce me to your sister. Maybe we’d get along. Both of my parents were alcoholics, you know.”

John didn’t.

“Well, they were, and my mother– she died in her own vomit one night after she’d been drinking more heavily than usual, and she was alone. It was only then that my father was able to cut down on his own drinking. I was eight,” she says quietly.

“Oh, Molly, I didn’t know.”

Her eyes are sad but she smiles. “It’s okay, now. A little bit. It doesn’t really go away, I guess. I just thought that maybe some companionship would do your sister some good, especially after her breakup with Clara.”

“I don’t know how she’d take that, but you’re welcome to try. Would you and Jim like to see a film with Harry and me, maybe? This Sunday? I’m trying to get her back into normal life, and I feel guilty not doing enough to help her. You just reminded me now,” John says.

Molly’s grin becomes more cheerful. “I’ll ask Jim, but I’m sure he’d love to.”

~-~ 

As it turns out, Jim is busy on Sunday.

“Sorry, hon, I’ve got to deal with some personal things this weekend but I’d _so_ love to do something like this in the future sometime,” he smiles at Molly, who blushes adorably. “You should go anyways,” he says.

Jim Mo is a small man, though taller than John, and younger than John had realized. He’s seen the man often, though they’ve only had a handful of conversations with each other. John realizes guiltily that he’s been spending more time with Holmes’ file than with his colleagues.

He hesitates before answering Mo. “Are you sure you’re okay with that?” He doesn’t want the man to think he’s competing for Molly’s affections.

Mo grins. “Nah, it’s fine. No worries. Go have fun.”

~-~ 

On Friday, John decides to visit Holmes again.

They start tentatively, like last time, and dance around the topic of Holmes’ crime for half an hour. Pleasantries can, apparently, be dragged out for quite a long time.

Neither the doctor nor the convict still feel very comfortable with the other, but they part after an hour or so with all bones intact, so all goes very well indeed. Holmes almost appears to be smiling, very slightly so, but smiling nevertheless, when John returns him to Cell 22-1-B, and John himself goes home that night content.

~-~ 

Sunday comes soon, and after Molly and John finish up their shift, they go to pick up Harry.

John’s not sure exactly how well tonight is going to go, but he’s glad that his sister had at least consented to come to the movies with him and Molly. It’s the first major step he’s made towards repairing their relationship, and he doesn’t want to botch it. He’s ignored her for long enough.

Harry opens the door, dressed in jeans and a wrinkled t-shirt, but John doesn’t complain, as for the first time in ages, the house doesn’t smell of liquor. At least, not all of it. It’s a start, and John says so.

He introduces his friend and his sister, and they actually get along quite a bit better than he’d expected.

“Oh! You have a cat!” Molly exclaims.

Harry’s eyes flicker uncertainly. “Yes… Is that a problem?”

Molly’s eyes go wide. “Oh, no, of course not! I love cats! I had a cat when I was little. His name was Spot. I loved that cat,” she says wistfully. “I’d like to get a cat now, actually. I’ve been meaning to get one but I haven’t gotten around to it and it seems I’m always too busy to go find a good cat…” she trails off. “I’m rambling,” she apologizes.

Harry actually laughs out loud, surprising John, and offers, “I’m going to be out of town in a week or so, out to the country to try to get some air, you know. I was going to leave Cam here by himself, but if you’d like to come by and, I dunno, talk to him, feed him, sometime next week, that’d be lovely.”

“Thank you, yes I’d love to!” Molly exclaims, nearly squealing. She scoops Cam up and coos to him as he twists futilely.

John feels rather like a third wheel by the time they finally leave for dinner, he realizes with shock.

He pulls Harry to the side, wondering how to phrase this. “Hey, er, Harry, listen, Molly’s not – she’s not, oh, she’s not like – hm. She’s got a boyfriend, Harry–“ He gets cut off by his sister, who rolls her eyes.

“God, John, it’s not like that. Not this soon after – after Clara, you know? She’s fucking _nice_ , that’s all.”

John has to acknowledge that Molly’s presence here has improved Harry’s attitude exponentially. They don’t bring up the topic again.

The film is a new take on some classic drama that John forgets almost immediately, but seeing Harry laugh and carry a conversation again is wonderful and the mediocrity of the film doesn’t change a thing.

The cab ride back to Harry’s flat is quiet and companionable. Before Harry leaves, she scrawls down her email address for Molly and reminds her about Cam.

“That was nice,” Molly remarks after giving her street address to the cabbie. John hums in agreement. It really was.

~-~ 

“How’s the research going, Doctor Watson?” Midway through the week, the warden intercepts John as he’s closing up for the night.

John looks up. “Hmm?”

“Your project on my brother. How is it working out? Have you found anything interesting yet?” Mycroft pauses and raises an eyebrow. “Then again, you haven’t been taking the file out very often in the past week. Lost interest already? I didn’t take you for that kind of man, but one never knows.”

“I haven’t quit, sir,” John frowns in irritation. “I just decided to take a different approach. I got to a sort of dead end with the file. I just need to talk to your brother more.”

~-~ 

“I’ve stopped spending time on your file,” John confesses to Holmes on Thursday during his lunch break.

The inmate lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?”

John grins a little. “Yeah, it really wasn’t doing a lot for me.”

“So you’re switching to primary sources now? In case you were about to try something, Doctor, you won’t get anything from me. Not yet.” Holmes sits back on his bed.

They’re inside Cell 22-1-B again. The other B Block inmates are all outside, per usual, getting the most of their rec time on the courts. The sounds of the game going on just outside the cell block back door barely penetrate to Cell 22, near the front of the building.

John notices the details in the little room this time, slightly more confortable with the inmate who lives in it.

The books under the bed, for example: The first is a manual of HMP Baker rules and regulations, normal to any cell in the prison complex. The second, however, appears to be something about bee-keeping, of all things.

The papers on the desk are more organized today. The top sheet is a hand-drawn diagram of a bird’s wing, anatomically correct and beautiful, to be honest. Peeking out from under this is quite a bit of text, typed up with handwritten notes in the margins.

John tears his attention away from the desk and focuses on the man.

The regulation coverall suits of Baker inmates come in three sizes. The ones Holmes wears are shorter and looser than they should be, due to the man’s awkward proportions, but the shirt underneath is rather tighter. John notes the way the convict’s thin, sinewy muscles move beneath the cloth, and wonder just how strong Holmes is. Looks, after all, can be deceiving.

“You’ve caught me,” John sighs good-naturedly. His gaze becomes serious. “But you know, Holmes, I _will_ get that story out of you. It’s only a matter of when.”

Holmes leans back, a small smile caressing his lips. “You’ll hear it when I decide to tell you, Doctor.” And before John can say anything, “This bores me. Let’s talk about something else.”

John frowns a little but agrees to change the topic. “That drawing?” he points. “Did you do that?”

Holmes hums an affirmative.

The doctor raises his eyebrows in appreciation. “Can I take a look?”

“Help yourself.”

John moves over to the far end of the cell and picks up the sketch. “This is really good,” he admits to Holmes, “especially considering that it’s in charcoal.” He pauses for a moment. “Any more of this somewhere?”

The inmate points to the remainder of the pile.

As John sifts through the stack, he notes a few quick drawings of peculiar-looking flora, some electrical diagrams, the odd city landscape, and several detailed sketches of different parts of the human body. Near the middle of the heap are several pages crisply folded in half together.

Holmes twitches faintly when John starts unfolding these sheets, but says nothing and allows him to continue.

John’s eyes widen when he sees the contents of the pages. The first sheet is nearly covered in sketches of a single individual: Mycroft Lestrade. In profile, above the shoulder, full length, in various positions. Close-ups of the face, the back of the head, even a couple of hands. All incredibly detailed and absolutely accurate.

Tearing his eyes away from the sheet, he flips to the next page in the packet, this one featuring Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade.

The next is Marie Hudson. John’s seen only a couple of photos of Holmes’ former landlady, but she is easily recognizable from the drawings. She gets two pages, both entirely covered. The individual drawings blur together, but not sloppily.

One page after Marie Hudson is a young man who John does not recognize. Also occupying the same pages are a few other faces, blurrier and less careful than the others. John looks up, remembering that Holmes is still in the cell with him. The inmate’s face is blank and gives no indication as to the identity of the man featured on the page. John assumes that this is Ryan Wiggins. In the _Sherlock Holmes B_ file, Wiggins had been referred to as one of Holmes associates, an informant of a sorts.

When John turns to the last section, he can’t suppress the gasp that comes out of him.

Filling five pages are detailed sketches of one man: himself.

John looks up at Holmes, whose face is struggling to stay blank. Neither say a word for a minute, and John looks back down at the pages.

He’s seen Holmes only a smattering of times, and even their short sessions together haven’t been so much, really, but the sketches on these papers are brilliant, to say the least. The details are all there, painstaking shading etching lifelike lines into the renderings of Doctor John Watson.

He sees things that he hasn’t even really noticed in himself. The way he curls his hands while he thinks, the way his body falls into the stance of a soldier, though it’s been months, and the little scars on his ears and neck that he’d forgotten about.

And yet, Holmes had noticed it all. Even more than that, remembered it well enough to sketch it after their meetings together.

John gathers his voice. “These are – amazing.”

“You really think so?” Holmes’ voice might or might not shake, very slightly.

“They’re fantastic, brilliant, mate. If you hadn’t become a detective, you should have become an artist,” John exclaims honestly.

The inmate breaks into a smile. It’s an open smile, a true showing of emotion, one of the first John’s seen from the man, and it’s startling and dazzling and _wonderful_. He decides he likes the convict more this way.

The conversation opens up from there, and John realizes that there are things in Holmes’ life that, somehow, didn’t manage to make their way into Mycroft’s master file.

He hears about the one time, while Holmes’d been at uni, that he’d disassembled all of the furniture in a bully’s room, removed all the screws and fasteners, and replaced the parts where they’d been before.

He learns how exactly the inmate had first been introduced to drugs, and how his times in rehab had been some of the worst days of his life.

John is just starting to loosen up and talk about himself when the other man points at the doctor’s watch.

“I believe your shift starts in five minutes,” he states.

John checks. This is true.

“I’ll be back soon,” he promises, letting himself out of the cell door, feeling strangely obligated to return, and not just for information. “Sherlock,” he hesitates, “it was nice getting to know you.”

He starts to walk away down the empty corridor.

Holmes stands. “Doctor,” he begins. Something in his tone makes John turn back around.

“Yes?”

The inmate grins, satisfied. “That was the first time you’ve called me by my first name.”

John stops and thinks on it, realizing that it’s true. He nods and turns to go.

Sherlock’s voice carries suddenly down the hallway and around the corner. “It was – nice – getting to know you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a while, I suppose, but thanks to anyone who's been reading this and as always, I hope you enjoyed it.


	7. Chapter 7

When John gets to work the next day, he finds a note on the desk in his small medical office.

It’s from Sherlock.

~-~ 

“ _Clostridium botulinum_. Toxin-producing bacteria, virtually undetectable, like that _pauper torrentum_ they found in Harrison,” the convict begins without preamble.

“What?” John’s just arrived at Cell 22-1-B.

“Tell them to look over the data on the body. If they’ve measured the amount of the poison, they’ll find that there wasn’t enough of it to kill him. The poison is obscure enough that they wouldn’t know exactly how much could take down a full-grown man like Harrison, and they wouldn’t bother to look further into it once they thought they’d found the answer. It’s wrong. If the body is still intact, tell them to check for traces of botulinum. It’s much easier to obtain than the _torrentum_ poison and wouldn’t require as much to kill,” Sherlock explains.

John is still confused. “Why would there be more than one poison in his system? If he could be killed with one more easily than the other, why introduce the other at all?”

Sherlock sits forward on the end of his bed, leaning towards the door bars. “I think it was a signature.”

“Sorry?”

“There’s a name no one says. Consulting criminal James Moriarty; you probably haven’t heard of him. It’s a long shot but the name of the poison is connected to one of his more-used aliases: Richard Brook. He was in the media a while back under that name, something about banking troubles. The press nicknamed him ‘Poor Brook’, which can translate to Latin as _pauper torrentum_. I’d only found the connection during one of my cases, the so-called “serial suicides”. I’d wager now that those deaths were the same as these: botulinum poisoning, with the Saturn spider only as a signature. _Stupid_.” The last is to himself.

John is hesitant. “That case… you told me about it, briefly. That was the last one, wasn’t it? The one that ended on the sixth of December? That’s why you were chasing Hope and McGinty at the last.”

Sherlock is curt. “Yes.”

“You thought they were the perpetrators? …But now you’re not so sure, because of the signature showing up here, now?”

Sherlock shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter who holds the gun, who administers the poison, John. It’s about the man waiting behind the scenes, pulling the strings. Moriarty. He’s all that matters. It doesn’t make a difference how many gangs I took down, how many killings I stopped. _He’s_ still out there.”

“But _they_ were the killers? In person, at least?”

The inmate gives a small nod. “Hope, yes. McGinty was just backup, part of Moriarty’s crew.”

“Then you stopped a serial killer that night, Sherlock. You managed to talk your way out of the murder charge, to more than halve your sentence, and you didn’t mention that the victims were murderers themselves? I’ve read the reports; Mycroft’s got them all, and nowhere in there is a mention of this. And then you, waiting in your flat for the police to arrive and arrest you? Leaving evidence that you knew they’d find? Did you _want_ to go to prison?”

Sherlock flattens his mouth. “Clever boy, aren’t you?” he mutters softly. “None of the others got that, but you found it, a relative stranger.”

“I did spend all that time with the file,” John reminds him. “And I’ve actually talked to you since you’ve been here, unlike most of them.”

The consulting detective nods absently.

John checks his watch. His lunch break is almost over. “So why did you do it? Let yourself be caught, I mean?”

Sherlock shrugs. “After it happened, I found listening devices on both of the bodies. I destroyed them, of course, but anything that had been transmitted couldn’t be changed. On a hunch, I hacked Mycroft’s HMP Baker account, and found that just hours after Hope and McGinty died, one of his security chiefs had disappeared. I left the evidence, let myself be caught, and while I was awaiting trial, one of my suspicions appeared to confirm itself. The Baker employment slot was filled within a day of the former head of security’s disappearance, by one Jim Mo. You’ve met him. Extremely transparent pseudonym, but only if you know the name, which presumably Mycroft has told you. You’ve had a hunch for a while, now? About your colleague? But you couldn’t be certain, could you? Could have saved yourself the doubt by asking Mycroft. I’d be very surprised if he didn’t know.”

John has to admit that he’s been suspicious. “Why would your brother hire someone he knew to be a criminal?”

“ _Keep your friends close and your enemies closer_ , I believe the saying goes. Quite applicable in this case.”

“And why _did_ you let yourself be caught?”

“Can’t tell you that just now, I’m afraid.”

~-~ 

John barely makes it to the sick bay on time, his head spinning.

His conception of the facts have been skewed all this time. He knows he should be pleased that he’s managed to get some sort of truth out of Holmes but honestly he’s so startled by what he’s just learned that he’s having trouble focussing on work.

Molly notices. “Something on your mind?”

He shakes his head absently. He still doesn’t know what exactly Sherlock is doing but he’s pretty sure that he wouldn’t want John to tell anyone.

“ ‘Kay,” says Molly, skeptically.

~-~ 

He does tell the warden, since he probably already knows.

Mycroft Lestrade leans back in his desk chair, pleased. “You’ve gotten much further than I have with my brother, that much is clear. I was aware that there was a ninety-nine percent certainty that my security chief is Moriarty; however, I did not know that Sherlock had placed himself here in order to play Moriarty’s game.”

“Sorry. A game?” John questions.

“Yes, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? He’d been chasing Moriarty for a long time. I hadn’t known of the man’s true significance until now, however. I hadn’t known how large his presence in the criminal industry was, but apparently Sherlock had. Sloppy of me, but I did have other things on my mind.”

John blinks. “Okay. But what is this _game_ you’ve mentioned?”

Mycroft shrugs. “It’s a theme with this Moriarty character. He teases. He plays games.”

~-~ 

“Planning your daring escape?” Jim drawls, leaning against Cell 22-1-B’s door.

Sherlock pointedly doesn’t respond, simply tucks his fingertips under his chin and remains lying on the cot.

“I answered your challenge, Sherly. You really ought to think about answering mine. Or is this getting boring for you? I’m sure I can make it more interesting if that’s the problem.”

The inmate closes his eyes in response.

Jim frowns. “I did think you’d make this a bit more fun but altogether you’ve turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.”

No response from Sherlock, and Moriarty is becoming visibly annoyed, but he leaves, for the present.

~-~ 

“I’ve decided to trust you, against my better judgment,” Sherlock announces as soon as the conference room door shuts behind them.

John sits down. “Trust me about what?”

~-~ 

**_6 December, last year_ **

Sherlock arrives at the Roland-Kerr Further Education College only a couple minutes after the cab does, judging from the still-warm engine.

The position of the car as well as probability suggests that Hope is in the building to the right, which Sherlock enters quietly.

The building is relatively quiet. He strains his ears for any sound and is rewarded when he picks out hurried footsteps on the level above him. Sherlock pursues. When he exits the stairwell, he hears the footsteps again and breaks into a quiet run.

There is a classroom with the lights on farther down the hallway. Sherlock makes for it, checking each of the rooms on the way, but all appear unoccupied. When he reaches the lighted room, he can see Jeff Hope through the window. He doesn’t pause before stepping very deliberately through the door.

Hope looks up from his seat at one of the tables in the middle of the room. “You’re late—“ he begins, before he sees Sherlock’s face.

Sherlock raises his eyebrows, curious. “Expecting someone else?” He sits on the other side of the table, opposite Hope.

Hope is an older man. Cab driver, divorced, cleverer than most ordinary people. Dressed rather shabbily, however, Sherlock thinks, possibly suffering from asthma but not carrying medication. Not planning ahead. What kind of serial killer doesn’t take care of his own health?

When the other man pulls a fake gun, Sherlock laughs. “Don’t insult my intelligence.”

Hope pauses, narrows his eyes in sudden recognition. “You’re Sherlock Holmes.”

“Correct,” Sherlock replies, masking his surprise.

Hope sits back. “Didn’t think I’d be meeting you so soon.”

“Meeting me?”

“I’ve been told about you, you know,” Hope says, leaning forward.

Sherlock leans forward as well. “Told… about _me_? Who would notice _me_?”

The cabbie chuckles. “You’re too modest, Mr. Holmes. Got yourself a fan, you have.”

Sherlock waves this off, filing it away for later. “Not interested. Tell me something else.”

“Something else? Maybe you want to know about those serial suicides?”

Sherlock sighs. “I know it was murder, and I know it was you. I want to know how you did it.”

Jeff Hope sits back. “You’re supposed to be clever, aren’t you? Why don’t you tell me?”

“I don’t have enough information,” Sherlock explains calmly. “I make it a point never to theorize without all the facts.”

Hope laughs, suddenly. “I like you, Sherlock Holmes,” he says.

Sherlock laughs, too, quietly. “I don’t think you do,” he responds after a minute. “So. Will you tell me how you did it or will I have to extract that information through my own methods?”

The cabbie stops laughing. “You’re not what I expected,” he says slowly.

“ _How did you do it?_ ” Sherlock asks one more time, standing up. His shadow falls over the man on the other side of the table.

Hope looks nervous, eyes flickering to the door behind Sherlock and back to his face. He licks his lips and opens his mouth, as if about to speak. Something in Hope’s jitteriness makes the consulting detective turn around. He is only in time to catch a flicker of motion outside the window before the door flies open in the path of another man.

This time, the object in his hand _is_ a real gun. It’s pointing at Sherlock.

Sherlock steps around the table slowly, the other man giving no indication of being about to shoot. When all three of them are on the same side of the table, Sherlock’s eyes flicker up and down the man’s figure. Hope remains seated.

Several long seconds pass before Sherlock speaks, calmly. “Two of you? One to perform the murder and one hired to dump the body?” he assesses.

These serial killings are clearly personal for Hope. Presumably the other man, taller and burlier, is an accomplice or hired hand.

The newcomer doesn’t answer Sherlock’s question. “You. Get over there.” He waves the gun toward the near wall. His accent reveals that he’s American.

Sherlock takes half a second to decide what he’s going to do. Then he walks over toward the wall, past Hope. As he passes the older man, he pulls him upright in front of him, spinning so that he partially obscures the newcomer’s view of Sherlock.

The man with the gun hesitates. It’s all Sherlock needs to propel Jeff Hope forward towards him, throwing him off balance and sending both of them to the ground. A shot is fired but it glances off of the wall, and Sherlock relieves the man of the gun quickly.

He turns it in the direction of the two on the ground, who have now untangled themselves. “Your name. What is it?” Sherlock demands of the newcomer, who shakes his head mutely.

Sherlock sighs and points the gun at his head.

“McGinty,” he man hurriedly answers. “Jack McGinty.”

~-~ 

“Wait, stop,” John requests tentatively. “I thought they found the bodies in an empty flat.”

Sherlock stops speaking. “They did.”

“But you said that you were at the Roland-something College—“

“Roland-Kerr Further Education College,” Sherlock says tersely.

“—and, I mean, I saw the files. They had surveillance footage and stills from the CCTVs, you know. They didn’t mention you moving away from the College. They didn’t mention seeing you anywhere near the flat where Hope and McGinty were found. That bit was bothering me,” John finishes.

The ex-detective looks crossly at John. “Clearly, we moved. I’ll get to that. If you’d allow me to continue?”

John has plenty of other questions, but he reluctantly supposes that they can wait.

~-~ 

**_6 December, last year_ **

“Why are you here?” Sherlock asks.

“Are you asking him or me?” Hope asks quietly.

Sherlock’s mouth tightens. “Both.”

“Can’t tell you that,” Hope answers nonchalantly.

The gun shifts so as to point towards the cabbie, but his face doesn’t change. Sherlock looks him in the eye for a moment before realizing that shooting this man would be a waste of bullets. The threat of death isn’t going to do anything to Hope. He’s been living under the threat of death for three years already, and Sherlock’s surprised he hadn’t noticed the illness before. To be fair, he had had other things on his mind.

Sherlock points the gun back at McGinty. “Why are _you_ here?” He’ll get back to the cabbie later.

“I was hired,” the other man says.

“Hired to do what?”

“To keep an eye on Jeff here.” This is unexpected.

“Why?”

A shrug, and then a flinch. “I was hired to.”

“But you weren’t just keeping an eye, were you? You were meeting. He’d been expecting someone when I’d entered, and it obviously wasn’t been me. Why were you meeting?” Sherlock asks.

McGinty blinks rapidly. “Can I stand up?”

“No.”

“Um. Please, I’m just an in-between. This job is first-level, just quiet stuff. I don’t do anything big—“ the man is babbling now. Not well-trained, definitely not professional, though he apparently knows how to handle a firearm. American ex-con? Sherlock brushes this away.

“You’re an in-between,” Sherlock repeats from the man’s first sentence. “Delivering a message to him that couldn’t be delivered via electronic communication? A message from who?”

~-~ 

The door to the conference room bangs open. It’s the warden and Anthea. Mycroft is red-faced and breathing more heavily than should be necessary.

“Sherlock, you need to return to your cell. Doctor Watson, you should leave for the night,” Mycroft says without preamble.

Sherlock and John have already jumped to their feet.

“What is it?” Sherlock demands angrily. “Your doctor has finally gotten me to talk and now you interrupt us?”

“He’s telling _you?_ ” Mycroft says to John, urgency gone from his voice, replaced by surprise. He even looks like he regrets barging in now.

“What is it?” John asks the warden.

Mycroft remembers his reason for coming here. The urgency is back. “James Mo has resigned his job.”

“ _What?_ ” Sherlock yells.

Anthea, Mycroft, and John shush him.

“He’s gone, Sherlock. You’ve waited too long.”

“Oh, so this is _my_ fault?” Sherlock snarls.

“Moran is gone, too. Escaped near the same time,” Anthea explains, calm as ever.

John stares at her. “ _Escaped_?” he says, disbelieving.

Sherlock mutters something.

“Excuse me?” Mycroft asks.

“I said, that’s what comes of letting a criminal be your security chief,” Sherlock says loudly.

The warden glares. “I had presumed that you had had something planned for him, Sherlock, but clearly you don’t have an inkling as to what you’re doing.”

Sherlock opens his mouth again to retort but he’s interrupted by Anthea.

“Sir, the lockdown?” she reminds Mycroft.

“Oh, yes. Sherlock, back to Cell 22-1-B. Her Majesty’s Prison Baker is on lockdown. The official reason is Moran’s escape, but it’s more than that, as you know. That means no inmate visits. Can’t risk anything happening just now. Doctor, you should go home if you don’t have anything to contribute.”

Sherlock glares. “Let me finish talking to John, Mycroft. It’s _me_. You’re not going to lock up your own brother for no reason, are you?”

“You’re a convicted criminal,” his brother reminds him. “You’re going back to your cell or I will deal with you the same way I deal with any inmate resistance.”

They siblings glare at each other for a while before Sherlock rolls his eyes and walks out the door.

“We’ll talk again, John,” he calls from the hallway. Anthea follows him.

“Not while we’re on lockdown, you’re not,” Mycroft says sharply. He follows the others out the door, to escort Sherlock back to his cell.

John remains in the conference room, fingertips brushing the hard, cold surface of the table. He wonders if the table in the Roland-Kerr Further Education College classroom had been similar to this one.

A minute later, he decides to heed Mycroft’s advice and go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. It's been a while. Dodging mines that I've accidentally set up for myself in the plot hasn't been too easy. As always, feedback is fantastic and I do hope it was a decent chapter.


	8. NOT A CHAPTER UPDATE (Oct 2015)

From the author: My apologies, but I'm no longer feeling this fic. I've decided to cut myself loose from this one indefinitely, and though there is a slim chance that I'll return to this story, it is slim indeed.


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